The foreign tourist gazing on thy vale, By rural seat and stately mansion graced, Stands mute with wonder when he hears the tale Of thy redemption from the sylvan waste: That only fifty years their rounds have traced Since Phelps, the Cecrops of thy realm(2) forsook The peopled haunts of Genius, Art and Taste, While doubting friends with apprehension shook, And love upon his form fixed sad, regretful look. On the broad green acclivities that round The lovely lake of Canandaigua rise, The groves in deep, majestic grandeur frowned, Hiding their gloomy secrets from the skies, And scarred and worn by storms of centuries, When painted hordes, with streaming locks of jet, Terrific garb, and wildly glancing eyes, Him and his daring band in treaty met Though late with Christian gore the tomahawk was wet. A magic mirror girt by emerald, In shade embowered, the diamond waters lay; While the proud eagle, king-like, fierce and bald, Throned on the blasted hemlock, eyed his prey: Sweet wild-flowers, guarded from the blaze of day, Delicious odor on the soft air flung; And birds of varied note and plumage gay On shrubs and vines, with ripening berries hung, Folded their glittering wings, and amorously sung. The water-rat and darting otter swam Amid the reedy flags that fringed the shore; And the brown beaver to his rounded dam, With patient toil, the tooth-hewn sappling bore: The lonely heron, surfeited with gore. Smoothed on the pebbly beech his plumage dank: Earth, sky and wave an air of wildness wore, And nimbly down the green and sloping bank Came stag and timid hind, on silver hoof and drank. The pen of voiceful narrative may well That solemn congress in the forest call A thrilling and romantic spectacle: The trunks of oaken monarchs, huge and tall, Were the rough columns of their council hall; Thick boughs were interwoven overhead, And winds made music with their leafy pall: Below a tangled sea of brushwood spread, Through which, to far-off wild, the beaten war-path led. Few were the whites in number, and about The council-fire were gathered dusky throngs, From whose dark bosoms time had not washed out The bitter memory of recent wrongs. Some longed to wake their ancient battle-songs, And on the reeking spoils of conflict gaze— Bind the pale captive to the stake with thongs, And hellish yells of exultation raise, While shriveled up his form, and blackened in the blaze.