h light-house mingling with the summer sky,
How long in lonely grandeur hast thou stood,
Braving alike the wild winds and the flood?
What howling gales have swept those shores along,
What tempests dire have piped their dismal song.
And lightnings glared those towering trees among?
And oft, as now, the summer sun has shed
His golden glories round thy mountain head,
And tarried there with late and lingering hues,
While all below was steeped in twilight dews,
And night's proud queen, in ages past, as now,
Hung her pale crescent o'er thy beetling brow.
Soft lamp--that lights the happy to their rest,
But wakes fresh anguish in the hapless breast,
And calls it forth a restless ghost, to glide
In lonely sadness up the mountain side;
And couldst not thou, oh! giant of the past,
Some far off knowledge o'er my senses cast,
Sigh in the hollow moanings of the gale,
And of past ages tell mysterious tale--
Speak of those ages of primeval worth,
And all the hidden wonders of thy birth--
Convulsions strange that heaved thy mighty breast,
And raised the stately masses of thy crest?
Perchance the Indian climbed thy rugged side,
Ere the pale face subdued his warlike pride,
And bent him down to kneel, to serve, to toil,
To alien shrines upon his native soil.
It needs not thee, O mount! to tell the story
That stained the wreath of many a hero's glory;
But Nature's mysteries must ever rest
Within the gloomy confines of thy breast,
Where wealth, uncounted, hapless lies concealed,
Locked in thine inmost temple unrevealed.
MRS. SARAH HALL.
Mrs. Sarah Hall was born in Philadelphia October 30th, 1761, and died in
that city April 8th, 1830. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Ewing,
D.D., a member of the Ewing family of the Eighth district of this
county, and one of the most distinguished scholars and divines of his
time, and who was for many years Provost of the University of
Pennsylvania and pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of
Philadelphia.
Miss Ewing's early education was confined to learning to read and write,
and in acquiring a thorough knowledge of housewifery. In 1782 she
married John Hall, a member of the Hall family of the Eighth district,
and the newly wedded pair came to reside in the house near Rowlandville,
formerly owned by the late Commodore Conner, and now occupied by his son
P.S.P. Conner.
It was while residing in this old mansion, surrounded by the picturesque
scenery of the Octoraro h
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