Grandeur.

I stood at sunrise, on the topmost part Of lofty mountain, massively sublime; A pinnacle of trachyte, seamed and scarred By countless generations' ceaseless war And struggle with the restless elements; A rugged point, which shot into the air, As by ambition or desire impelled To pierce the eternal precincts of the sky. Below, outspread, A scene of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such an awful and inspiring sight. The sun arose with bright transcendent ray, Up from behind a bleak and barren reef; His face resplendent with beatitude, Solar effulgence and combustive gleam; Bathing the scene in such a wealth of light That none could marvel that primeval man, Rude and untaught, whene'er the sun appeared, Fell down and worshiped. A wilderness of weird, fantastic shapes, Of precipice and stern declivity; Of dizzy heights, and towering minarets; Colossal columns and basaltic spires Which pointing heavenward, appeared to wave In benediction o'er the depths beneath. Uneven crags and cliffs of various form; Abysmal depths, and dire profundities; Chasms so deep and awful that the eye Of soaring eagle dare not gaze below, Lest, dizzied, he should lose his aerial poise, And headlong falling, reach the gulf beneath. Majestic turrets, and the stately dome Which, ovaled by the slow but tireless hand Of eons of disintegrating time, Still with impressive aspect rears its brow Defiant of mutation and decay.

The crevice deep and inaccessible; Fissure and rent, where the intrusive dike's Creative and destructive agency Leaves many an enduring monument Of metamorphic and eruptive power; Of molten deluge, and volcanic flood; Fracture and break, the silent stories tell Of dire convulsion in the ages past; Of subterranean catastrophe, And cataclysm of internal force. The trachyte wall, beseamed and battle scarred; The porphyritic tower and citadel; The granite ramparts and embattlements Of nature's fort, impregnable and wild, Stand as a symbol of eternal strength, And hurl a challenge to the elements! Cañons of startling and appalling depths, With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome; The gorgon and the labyrinthodon; The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur; Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes Which earth has seen in the mysterious past, Would seem in more accord and harmony With such surroundings than the puny form Of insignificant, conceited man. And interspersed amid these solemn peaks Lie many a pleasant vale and grassy slope, Besprinkled with the drooping columbine, And fragrant growths of all harmonious tints, Whose variegated colors punctuate Grandeur with beauty, and fearless, bloom In the forbidding shadow of the cliffs, And to the margin of the snowy combs Which still resist the sun's persuasive ray. A lakelet, cool, pellucid and serene, Fed by the drippings from eternal snows, Lies like a mirror 'neath a frowning cliff, Or as a gem, majestically ensconced In diadem of crag and pinnacle. Down towards the distant valley's sultry clime, Both solitary, and in straggling groups; In solid phalanx, rigid and compact; In labyrinth of branches interspread, Impervious to the rain and midday sun; In form spontaneous, without regard To law of uniformity, there stand In silent awe, or whispering to the breeze, The sombre fir and melancholy pine. And many a denuded avenue Of varying and considerable width, Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and pine, Which stands erect and proud on either hand, Attests the swift and desolating force Of fearful, devastating avalanche.