Classic Poem

In truth it was a landscape wildly gay
That 'neath his lofty vision smiling lay;
A sea of mingling hills, with forests crown'd,
E'en to their summits, waving all around,
Save where some rocky steep aloft was seen,
Frowning amid the wild romantic scene,
Around whose brow, where human step ne'er trode,
Our native Eagle makes his high abode;
Oft in the warring of the whistling gales,
Amid the scampering clouds, he bravely sails,
Without an effort winds the loftiest sky,
And looks into the Sun with steady eye:
Emblem and patron of this fearless land,
He mocks the might of any mortal hand,
And, proudly seated on his native rock,
Defies the World's accumulated shock.
Here, mid the piling mountains scatter'd round,
His winding way majestic Hudson found,
And as he swept the frowning ridge's base,
In the pure mirror of his morning face,
A lovelier landscape caught the gazer's view,
Softer than nature, yet to nature true.
Now might be seen, reposing in stern pride,
Against the mountain's steep and rugged side,
High P UTNAM'S battlements, like tow'r of old,
Haunt of night-robbing baron, stout and bold,
Scourge of his neighbour, Nimrod of the chase,
Slave of his king, and tyrant of his race.
Beneath its frowning brow, and far below,
The weltering waves, unheard, were seen to flow
Round West Point's rude and adamantine base,
That call'd to mind old A RNOLD'S deep disgrace,
A NDRE'S hard fate, lamented, though deserv'd,
And men, who from their duty never swerv'd—
The HONEST THREE —the pride of yeomen bold,
Who sav'd the country which they might have sold;
Refus'd the proffer'd bribe, and, sternly true,
Did what the man that doubts them ne'er would do.
Yes! if the Scroll of never-dying Fame,
Shall tell the truth, 'twill bear each lowly name;
And while the wretched man, who vainly tried
To wound their honour, and his Country's pride,
Shall moulder in the dirt from whence he came,
Forgot, or only recollected to his shame,
Quoted shall be these gallant, honest men,
By many a warrior's voice, and poet's pen,
To wake the sleeping spirit of the land,
And nerve with energy the patriot band.
Beyond, on either side the river's bound,
Two lofty promontories darkly frown'd,
Through which, in times long past, as learned say,
The pent up waters forc'd their stubborn way;
Grimly they frown'd, as menacing the wave
That storm'd their bulwarks with its current brave,
And seem'd to threaten from their shatter'd brow,
To crush the vessels all becalm'd below,
Whose white sails, hanging idly at the mast,
O'er the still waves a deep reflexion cast.
Still farther off, the Kaatskill, bold and high,
Kiss'd the pure concave of the arched sky,
Mingled with that its waving lines of blue,
And shut the world beyond from mortal view.