Where are the poets of this land? Why, such a world should bring forth men with minds and souls larger and stronger than any that ever dwelt in mortal flesh! Where are the poets of this land? They should be giants, too; Homers and Miltons, and Goethes and Dantes, and Shakspeares. Have these glorious scenes poured no inspirings into hearts worthy to behold and praise their beauty? Is there none to come here and worship among these hills and waters till his heart burns within him, and the hymn of inspiration flows from his lips, and rises to the sky? Is there not one among the sons of such a soil to send forth its praises to the universe, to throw new glory round the mountains, new beauty over the waves? Is inanimate nature, alone, here "telling the glories of God?" Oh, surely, surely, there will come a time when this lovely land will be vocal with the sound of song, when every close-locked valley and waving wood, rifted rock and flowing stream, shall have their praise. Yet 'tis strange how marvellously unpoetical these people are! How swallowed up in life and its daily realities, wants, and cares! How full of toil and thrift, and money-getting labour! Even the heathen Dutch, among us the very antipodes of all poetry, have found names such as the Donder Berg for the hills, whilst the Americans christen them Butter Hill, the Crow's Nest, and _such like_. Perhaps some hundred years hence, when wealth has been amassed by individuals, and the face of society begins to grow checkered, as in the old lands of Europe, when the whole mass of population shall no longer go running along the level road of toil and profit, when inequalities of rank shall exist, and the rich man shall be able to pay for the luxury of poetry, and the poor man who makes verses no longer be asked, "Why don't you cast up accounts?" when all this comes to pass, as _perhaps_ some day it may, America will have poets. It seems strange to me that men, such as the early settlers in Massachusetts, the Puritan founders of New England, the "Pilgrim Fathers," should not have had amongst them some men, or at least man, in whose mind the stern and enduring courage, the fervent enthusiastic piety, the unbending love of liberty, which animated them all, became the inspiration to poetic thought, and the suggestion of poetical utterance. They should have had a Milton or a Klopstock amongst them. Yet, after all, they had excitement of another sort, and, moreover, the difficulties and dangers, and distresses of a fate of unparalleled hardship, to engross all the energies of their minds; and I am half inclined to believe that poetry is but a hothouse growth, and yet I don't know: I wish somebody would explain to me every thing in this world that I can't make out.[60] We came down from the mountain at about half-past one: our party had been joined by Colonel ----, governor of the College, who very courteously came toiling up to Fort Putnam, to pay his compliments to us.