III. Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides In his fortress by the lake. Build high the fire, till the panther leap And we'll strengthen our weary arms with sleep New York, 1836. "New York Mirror," November, 1836. CATTERSKILL FALLS. IDST greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, MH 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, 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, For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought Of this 'Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood, A hundred winters ago, 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, The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; And here he paused, and against the trunk When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk, And the crescent moon, high over the green, On that icy palace, whose towers were seen To sparkle as if with stars of their own, While the water fell with a hollow sound, 'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. Is that a being of life, that moves At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes? 'Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er, In the midst of those glassy walls, He thinks no more of his home afar, Where his sire and sister wait. He heeds no longer how star after star His thoughts are alone of those who dwell Who pass where the crystal domes upswell Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!" Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine, And take a ghastly likeness of men, There pass the chasers of seal and whale, And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb; There are mothers-and oh how sadly their eyes In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast; They eye him not as they pass along, 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 |