New Hampshire Statesman And State Journal

FROM THE BOSTON COURIER

THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

How burns
The misty sunshine in the far up tops,
All scathed and bare, and drenched with drifting storms.
No verdure nestles there—the spectre pines
That haunt the dizzy peaks, tell of the strife
That laid their honors low, and the fragments
Swelling, like granite seas, around the base,
Proclaim the conflict with the elements,
That hurled them headlong down the frightful steep.

Huge frowning rocks yet cast their shadows down,
And almost tremble in their loosened beds;
Over the narrow gap wherein we stand,
Mere pigmies in creation's giant womb.

Like infant voices from the rocks below.
Comes up the music of the waterfall;
But dimly seen amid the boughs that hang
In clusters, o'er young Saco's mountain nest.
Strange contrast to the savage scene around.

'Tis terrible
To gaze even in this calm summer noon—
What then when whirlwinds sweep with deafening roar,
The thunder echoing from a thousand cliffs,
The avalanche upon the torrent steed,
The lightning strata marking out the gloom?

Why come they not in crowds from foreign lands
To gaze and muse?—the gifted spirits there,
Could never loiter did they dream of this.
Campbell! the scene is worthy of thy muse,
Come to our land and shame our native bards.
Who have no heart to speak the stirring thoughts
Of Nature's lonely haunts—oh, let them speak!
Unseal their lips—for they are made to voice
Their Maker's praise, and teach humility
To mortals, and their aspirations aid
For that ethereal and immortal clime,
The region of the blest.

Fair glorious ruins! ye o'ertop man's art,
Time is your sculptor, and the chisel tells
A master's hand, that shames the classic clime.
The pyramids of Egypt hide their heads.
When thou art named—antiquity they boast,
But not to thee. 'Twere beardless impudence.

The far voice of these mountains hath a charm,
To lure the Southron from his sunny clime
To the iron North. Long may they come as now,
Nestling with Northern hearts in the same nest,
And piping the same note of brotherhood.

Jessie
Is drinking in the music of the scene—
Oh, could I copy from her fair young cheek
The silent echoes of wild Nature's voice.
The scene had found an artist and a scribe.
The temple hath at least one worshipper—
Quaff on—albeit the swelling tide within
Hath swallowed up memorials of the past.

Like a fresh fountain opened to the sun
Thou standest revealed.
Farewell—I shall not soon forget the page
The God of Nature opened to me here;
Long may ye stand, to battle with the storms
That else would sweep the bosom of the plain.
Long may ye stand, to echo freedom's voice,
And bid the tyrant quail beneath your brow,
While countless ages lead their legions forth
To perish like the leaves in autumn's reign.

Pilgrims from every clime shall bend the knee
When thou art near.
The crowded marts shall
pour
Their millions from their pent-up hives, to breathe
Thy mountain air, and 'scape the sultry heat.
The hoary head shall bow, and childhood lisp
Thy praises.
Farewell!—my dust may mingle yet with thine.
Shadowy emblem of Eternity!
Thou art a token of my upward flight,
To meet the Framer of thy massive piles,
And Fashioner of me.

C. C.