ered now
The Delaware's steep hill, and then glance back.
The splendid sight will put you in a glow!
There winds the river in its snake-like track,
Whilst rural beauty laughs upon your view--
Meadows of green, and fields of golden hue,
And then White Lake, expanding far away!
Oh, its pure waters gleam before me now!
It sheds upon my world-worn heart a ray
Bright as the crystal beauty of its brow.
Loveliest of lakes! this pulse must cease to beat
Ere I forget thee, beautiful and sweet!
M., too, (the village,) is a lovely place,
Clustered midst grain-fields rich and orchards green,
With the grand woods around--in blended grace
Nature and Art at every point are seen.
Brimmed is it with good fellows, and those pearls
Of man's prosaic being--witching girls.
Yet there are places in this rising county
Where Nature seems determined not to grow;
Where travelers merit an especial bounty
For perseverance, where the starving crow
Would pass, disdaining to arrest his flight;
(But these things in strict confidence I write.)
The earth is sprinkled with a scanty growth
Of ragged, scrubby pine, and here and there
A lofty hemlock, looking as if loath
To show its surly head--while grim and bare
The ghosts of former trees their mossy locks
Shake, but all else is one great bed of rocks.
Yet there is beauty even there when green
And sunbright--there the ground-pine twines its fringe,
And the low whortleberries give the scene
(So thick their downy gems) a purple tinge,
And mossy paths are branching all about,
But if you meet a rattlesnake, look out!
Hour after hour, the stranger passing through
This member of the "southern tier" will see
Naught but the stretching forests, grand, 't is true,
But then life's naught without variety,
Though if he seeks with care to find that charm,
He 'chance may stumble on some stumpy farm,
And then the road called "Turnpike," "verbum sap!"
Now climbing o'er some mountain's rugged brow,
Now plunging headlong in some hollow's lap,
Still, "vice versa," laboring on you go,
How high soe'er the hill, it has its brother,
You're scarce down one before you go up t'other.
The people, too, who live--I mean, who stay
In their green Alpine homes, (I like a touch
Of
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