THE FALLS OF THE PASSAIC. With a glance of disgust, he the landscape surveyed, 195 With its fragrant wild flowers, its wide-waving shade ; — He rived the green hills, the wild woods he laid low; Countless moons have since rolled in the long lapse of time Cultivation has softened those features sublime; The axe of the white man has lightened the shade, But the stranger still gazes with wondering eye, On the rocks rudely torn, and groves mounted on high; Still loves on the cliff's dizzy borders to roam, Where the torrent leaps headlong embosomed in foam. NIAGARA. BY L. H. SIGOURNEY. FLOW on for ever, in thy glorious robe Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of Him Keep silence and upon thy rocky altar pour Ah! who can dare To lift the insect-trump of earthly hope, NIAGARA. That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve Every leaf, That lifts itself within thy wide domain, Thy glorious features with our pencil's point, Were profanation. Thou dost make the soul A wondering witness of thy majesty, To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step, 197 cember, 1820.] I. WAKE your harp's music!-louder-higher, And pour your strains along, And smite again each quivering wire, In all the pride of song! Shout like those godlike men of old, Who daring storm and foe, On this blest soil their anthem rolled, Two hundred years ago! ODE. II. From native shores by tempests driven, They sought a purer sky, And found beneath a milder heaven, The home of liberty! An altar rose-and prayers—a ray Two hundred years ago! III. They clung around that symbol too, Their refuge and their all; And swore while skies and waves were blue, That altar should not fall. They stood upon the red man's sod, 'Neath heaven's unpillared bow, With home-a country-and a God, Two hundred years ago! IV. Oh! 'twas a hard unyielding fate To darken her decrees: But safe above each coral grave, ♦ 199 |