| |
| MIDST greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, | |
| From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; | |
| All summer he moistens his verdant steeps | |
| With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs; | |
| And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, | 5 |
| When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide. | |
| |
| But when, in the forest bare and old, | |
| The blast of December calls, | |
| He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, | |
| A palace of ice where his torrent falls, | 10 |
| With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, | |
| And pillars blue as the summer air. | |
| |
| For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, | |
| In the cold and cloudless night? | |
| Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought | 15 |
| In forms so lovely and hues so bright? | |
| Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell | |
| Of this wild stream and its rocky dell. | |
| |
| ’T was hither a youth of dreamy mood, | |
| A hundred winters ago, | 20 |
| Had wandered over the mighty wood, | |
| When the panther’s track was fresh on the snow, | |
| And keen were the winds that came to stir | |
| The long dark boughs of the hemlock-fir. | |
| |
| Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair | 25 |
| For a child of those rugged steeps; | |
| His home lay low in the valley where | |
| The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; | |
| But he wore the hunter’s frock that day, | |
| And a slender gun on his shoulder lay. | 30 |
| |
| And here he paused, and against the trunk | |
| Of a tall gray linden leant, | |
| When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk | |
| From his path in the frosty firmament, | |
| And over the round dark edge of the hill | 35 |
| A cold green light was quivering still. | |
| |
| And the crescent moon, high over the green, | |
| From a sky of crimson shone | |
| On that icy palace, whose towers were seen | |
| To sparkle as if with stars of their own; | 40 |
| While the water fell with a hollow sound, | |
| ’Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. | |
| |
| Is that a being of life, that moves | |
| Where the crystal battlements rise? | |
| A maiden watching the moon she loves, | 45 |
| At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes? | |
| Was that a garment which seemed to gleam | |
| Betwixt his eye and the falling stream? | |
| |
| ’T is only the torrent tumbling o’er, | |
| In the midst of those glassy walls, | 50 |
| Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor | |
| Of the rocky basin in which it falls. | |
| ’T is only the torrent—but why that start? | |
| Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart? | |
| |
| He thinks no more of his home afar, | 55 |
| Where his sire and sister wait. | |
| He heeds no longer how star after star | |
| Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late. | |
| He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast | |
| From a thousand boughs by the rising blast. | 60 |
| |
| His thoughts are alone of those who dwell | |
| In the halls of frost and snow, | |
| Who pass where the crystal domes upswell | |
| From the alabaster floors below, | |
| Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, | 65 |
| And frost-gems scatter a silvery day. | |
| |
| “And oh, that those glorious haunts were mine!” | |
| He speaks, and throughout the glen | |
| Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine, | |
| And take a ghastly likeness of men, | 70 |
| As if the slain by the wintry storms | |
| Came forth to the air in their earthly forms. | |
| |
| There pass the chasers of seal and whale, | |
| With their weapons quaint and grim, | |
| And bands of warriors in glittering mail, | 75 |
| And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb; | |
| There are naked arms, with bow and spear, | |
| And furry gauntlets the carbine rear. | |
| |
| There are mothers—and oh, how sadly their eyes | |
| On their children’s white brows rest! | 80 |
| There are youthful lovers,—the maiden lies, | |
| In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast; | |
| There are fair wan women with moonstruck air, | |
| The snow-stars flecking their long loose hair. | |
| |
| They eye him not as they pass along, | 85 |
| But his hair stands up with dread, | |
| When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng, | |
| Till those icy turrets are over his head, | |
| And the torrent’s roar as they enter seems | |
| Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams. | 90 |
| |
| The glittering threshold is scarcely passed, | |
| When there gathers and wraps him round | |
| A thick white twilight, sullen and vast, | |
| In which there is neither form nor sound; | |
| The phantoms, the glory, vanish all, | 95 |
| With the dying voice of the waterfall. | |
| |
| Slow passes the darkness of that trance, | |
| And the youth now faintly sees | |
| Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance | |
| On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees, | 100 |
| And walls where the skins of beasts are hung, | |
| And rifles gutter on antlers strung. | |
| |
| On a couch of shaggy skins he lies; | |
| As he strives to raise his head, | |
| Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes, | 105 |
| Come round him and smooth his furry bed, | |
| And bid him rest, for the evening star | |
| Is scarcely set and the day is far. | |
| |
| They had found at eve the dreaming one | |
| By the base of that icy steep, | 110 |
| When over his stiffening limbs begun | |
| The deadly slumber of frost to creep, | |
| And they cherished the pale and breathless form, | |
| Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm. | |
| |
