MIDDLE STATES. A Alleghany Mountains, Pa. CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. S looked the traveller for the world below, The lively morning breeze began to blow, The magic curtain rolled in mists away, And a gay landscape laughed upon the day. As light the fleeting vapors upward glide, Like sheeted spectres on the mountain side, New objects open to his wondering view Of various form, and combinations new, A rocky precipice, a waving wood, Deep winding dell, and foaming mountain flood, Each after each, with coy and sweet delay, Broke on his sight, as at young dawn of day, Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold, Like giant capt with helm of burnished gold. Now down the mountain's rugged western side, Descending slow, our lowly travellers hied, Deep in a narrow glen, within whose breast The rolling fragments of the mountain rest; Rocks tumbled on each other, by rude chance, Where ne'er was heard the woodman's echoing stroke, With heads that towered half up the mountain's side, * * The forest roared, the everlasting oak * In writhing agonies the storm bespoke, |