| |
| YE glorious Alleghanies! from this height | |
| I see your peaks on every side arise; | |
| Their summits roll beneath the giddy sight, | |
| Like ocean billows heaved among the skies. | |
| In wild magnificence upon them lies | 5 |
| The primal forest, kindling in the glow | |
| Of this mild autumn sun with golden dyes, | |
| While, in his slanting ray, their shadows grow | |
| Broad o’er the paradise of vale and wood below. | |
| |
| How beautiful! though, fresh from Nature’s God, | 10 |
| They show no footstep of an elder race; | |
| No human hand has ever turned their sod, | |
| Or heaved their massive granite from its place: | |
| The green banks of their floods bear not a trace | |
| Of pomp and power, which have come and gone, | 15 |
| And left their crumbling ruins to deface | |
| The virgin earth. Here Nature rules alone; | |
| The beauty of the hill and valley is her own. | |
| |
| Nor might the future generations know | |
| Aught of the simple people, who have made | 20 |
| Their habitations by the streams that flow | |
| So fresh and stainless from the forest shade; | |
| Who built their council fires on hill and glade, | |
| And in yon pleasant valleys, by the fall | |
| Of crystal founts, perchance, their dead have laid,— | 25 |
| But for the names of mountain, river, cataract,—all | |
| Significant of thought, and sweetly musical. * * * * * | |
| |
