they run,
Roseate surging,
Roll into one;
Filling the valley,
Luminous haze,
Heavenward soaring,
Rocks as we gaze;
Lifting strange columns
Of light in the air,
Weaves golden sunshine
Fitful and fair
Through the cloud pillars
Thrown to the sky,
Like the Dream-ladder
Jacob slept by.
Trailing o'er treetops,
Shadowing graves,
Gloomily weeping
While the wind raves,
Blurring the landscape
Rain clouds press on,
Lowering on nature
With leaden-hued frown.
Sulphurous, lurid,
Thunder is near;
Sobbings and mutterings
Fill us with fear.
Palls with wild fringes
Stream on behind—
Death may be riding
The wings of the wind.
Jagged clouds hanging
Formless and black,
Hurtle the whirlwind
Fast o'er their track;
Fiery flashes
Scathe the green plain;
Cataracts falling
In torrents of rain.
Thunder and lightning
Crash through the sky;
Whirlwinds are carding
The clouds as they fly!
Nature is reeling,
Sin at our heart,
Heaven is angered—
Well may we start!
God throws His shadow
Into the gloom;
The raindrops have caught it,
And break into bloom!
His light on Earth's teardrops
Gems Bliss on her clouds,
His rainbow of color
Paints Hope on her shrouds.
Tender and lovely,
Luminous, fair,
Infinite Beauty
Is bending through air,
Breathing through color,
Through Order, through Form,
That infinite Love
Rules the heart of the storm.
Caught in soft meshes,
Fractions the light,
Gold, green, or ruby,
Tremblingly bright.
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. It truly deserves the appellation of 'many fountained,' giving rise to great rivers, such as the Delaware, and one of the main branches of the Susquehanna, and to manifold smaller watercourses, as the Schoharie, Catskill, and Esopus. Unlike the Highlands of Northern New Jersey and Southern New York, and the region of the Adirondacs, its lakes are few and very small. The best known are the twin lakes near the Mountain House, and Shue's Lake, not far from the summit of Overlook Mountain. These are all at a height, approximately, of two thousand feet above the river, and add greatly to the variety and interest of the landscape in their vicinity.
Names among these hills are a commodity so scarce that their paucity presents a serious obstacle to intelligible description. Round Tops and High Peaks are innumerable. We hope, when Professor Guyot completes his cursory survey of heights, made eighteen months ago, he will strive to do as in North Carolina, and supply the deficiency. Nomenclature is a difficult matter, and requires a poet, a poetic man of science, or the imaginative intuitions of a primitive people.
The main range of the Catskills finds its southerly corner in Overlook Mountain, not far from Woodstock, and about seven miles (more or less) west of the Hudson. One ridge extends northerly (a little east, parallel with the river) from twelve to fourteen miles, and then, at the North Mountain, making an obtuse angle, turns to the northwest, and passes through Windham into Schoharie County: the other ridge, starting from Overlook, runs in a westerly direction along the southern border of Greene County, and finally in Delaware sinks into broken hill ranges of less elevation. The space intermediate between these two main ridges is at first narrow, but gradually widens as they diverge from the starting point; its interior (northwesterly) slope is drained by the Schoharie (a branch of the Mohawk) and its tributaries, the East, the West, and Batavia Kills. Singular gaps or cloves intersect the range, affording easy communication with the lowlands bordering its base. Each clove has its own stream, and in the main ones on the river front are found the countless and beautiful waterfalls which constitute the chief characteristic of Catskill scenery. The more primitive rocks of the Highlands, the Adirondacs, and the White Mountains do not offer such numerous and picturesque sheets of falling water as the red sandstone of the Catskills.
Starting from Overlook Mountain, whence the view is said to be magnificent, and proceeding northward, we first reach the Plattekill Clove, up whose steep and wooded cleft winds a wild road, chiefly used for quarrying purposes, and down whose abrupt declivity the Plattekill leaps from crag to crag in a series of fine falls and cascades. The quantity of water during the summer months, except after considerable rain, is small, but the rock formations are very interesting, reminding the traveller of wild passes in the Tyrol. This is perhaps the grandest of all the Catskill clefts, but human ingenuity has here afforded no aid to the sightseer,