Through the torn chasms
Smiles the lost blue--
The wilder the drifting,
The deeper the hue.
Beauty above us,
Beauty around,
Clouds, stars gem the heavens,
Trees, flowers paint the ground.
Rapturous meaning
Illumines the whole:
God gives us Beauty,
For Love is His Soul!
High-floating Cirri,
Passionless, pure;
Wild-piling Cumuli,
Never secure;
Low-trailing Rain Clouds
With rainbow-lit pall--
Softly ye whisper
That Love ruleth all!
SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.
II.--THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.
Who, in ascending the Hudson River, has not watched for the first
glimpse of the Catskills, and followed with delight their gradual
development of peak and clove, until, near Hudson, they stood fully
revealed, flooded with sunshine, flecked with shadows, or crowned by
storm-laden clouds?
This region is noteworthy, not alone from its beauty and incalculable
utility, but also from the associations clustering around it through the
pen of poets and writers of romance, the brush of the artist, and the
memories of thousands of tourists, who have found health and strength
for both body and mind upon its craggy heights or beside its numberless
wild and beautiful mountain torrents. It comprises the whole of Greene
County, a portion of Delaware, and the neighboring borders of Ulster,
Schoharie, and Albany.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62