Classic Poem

BY EPHRAIM PEABODY .

Morn on the Alleghanies! on their side,
Crossing a rocky promontory's brow,
That juts out o'er the wilderness below,
A band of emigrants may be descried.
Dawn on the mountains! Gloriously the morn
Purples along the east. The stars are shorn
And struggle forward with thin rays and white,
Then fade and vanish in the advancing light.
O'er the far forest-line, the herald-beams
Of morning upward blaze in rushing streams;
And the imperial sun, as he ascends,
His sceptred rays extends
To the far summits that to heaven aspire —
And at the touch they glow with heaven's own fire.
The awaking mountain-breezes lift
The mists that hang in the deep vales, and drift
Their folds, now fiery, and now dark, aloft —
They rise — scattered, and thin, and soft —
The incense of these mountain altars — to the clear,
Blue dome of heaven, and disappear.
As touched by Prospero's wand, a wide expanse
Opens at once upon their backward glance;
Far down — a circling vale, wherein the might
Of nations could do battle for a nation's right;
Around — heights over heights the vale embrace,
Like levels round some vast arena's space;
And far beyond, the clouds around them furl'd,
Heaves each long mountain-range — a rampart of the world.

Upon the naked promontory's brow
That overhung the wilderness below,
The travellers paused to look upon the scene,
The wife upon her husband's arm did lean,
And he upon his rifle, silently.
Hushed even was happy childhood's morning glee.
The vastness of the scene weighed down the sense,
And man felt nothing but his impotence,
And His supremacy who reigns alone ,
" The earth his footstool, and the heavens his throne. "

Sublimest was the awful silence there,
Hushing the very progress of the air.
Through the deep vale below a river flowed,
Falling, at times, in silver sheets — then hid
The o'erhanging wilderness amid —
Now hurrying 'tween the jagged rocks and rude;
Yet not a murmur rose to where they stood.
The infrequent clouds drifted athwart the sky,
Ever and ever floating silently.
Upon the topmost crag, splintered and bare,
Its angles glittering in the morning's glare,
With an unsteady wing
And naked talons, balancing,
An eagle sat and screamed t' the silence; — hill,
And wood, and silent cloud, echoed his accents shrill.