_"With swift and spoliating flow, Uprooting many a noble tree, To strew the desert's waste below, With scattered drift-wood and debris."_ _50_ _"Arrayed in Nature's pristine dress This was, indeed, a wilderness."_ _62_ _"We grew as two twin pines might grow, Upon some isolated edge, Of some lone precipice or ledge."_ _70_ _"The noble spruce and stately fir Stood draped in feathery garniture."_ _114_ _"From the mountain peaks crested with snow."_ _120_ _"High up on the cliffs in their dwellings Which were apertures walled up with rocks, Lived this people, sequestered and happy; Their dwellings now serve the wild fox."_ _126_ _"As it fearlessly leaps o'er the rocky wall From the mountain peaks stern and hoary."_ _130_ _"I love the lake in the mountain's lap."_ _134_ [Illustration: "As stormy cowls their summits hid." _See page 19._] _The Passing of the Storm_ I. THE STORM Reflecting, in their crystal snows, The glittering jewels of the night, The mountains lay in calm repose Slumbering 'neath their robes of white. The stars grew dim,--a film instead, The twinkling heavens overspread, Through which their eyes essayed to peer, Each moment less distinct and clear, Till, when the stellar beacons failed, A darkness unrelieved, prevailed. Out of the ambient depths of gloom, Bereft of its accustomed bloom, Came day-break, comfortless and gray. Sped the nocturnal shades away, Unveiling, with their winged retreat, A twilight sad and incomplete. Reluctantly, as dawn aspired, The shadows lingered, then retired As vanquished armies often yield Upon a well-contested field, And sullenly retrace their course Before an overwhelming force. Within the east no purple light Proclaimed the passing of the night; No crimson blush appeared to warn The landscape of returning morn. Discarding all the gorgeous dyes, Wherewith the sunset tints the skies, And mingling with the azure blue, The warp and woof of sober hue; The fairies of the air, I wist, Had spun a silvery web of mist, Whose texture, ominous and gray, Obscured the glories of the day. Such was the dreary winter's day, Which dawned with dull and leaden sky; No cheerful penetrating ray Flashed from the sun's resplendent eye. In vain, through rift and orifice, He strove with radiant beam to kiss Each mountain peak and dizzy height, Apparelled in their garbs of white, And crown each brow, so bleak and cold, With burnished diadem of gold.