"The trachyte wall beseamed and battle scarred." SCENE IN OURAY COUNTY, COLORADO.

The mountain rill its pleasant music makes, As the descendant waters roll along, In rhythmic flow and dulcet cantabile, In various concord and harmonious pitch, Pursuant of its journey to the sea; The murmuring treble of the rivulet, Uniting with the deep and ponderous bass Of torrent wild and foaming cataract; The thunderous, reverberating tones And seething ebullition of the falls Are blended in one grand euphonious chord. Far in the hazy distance, as the eye With vague perceptive vision penetrates, Lie the vast mesas of ethereal hue, Stretched in a calm and sleepy quietude, Dreamy repose and blue tranquillity; The eye which rests upon the drowsy scene Beholds a dim horizon, which presents No line of demarcation or of bounds; A merging union, blurred and indistinct; Fuliginous confusion, that the eye In viewing gazes, but no more discerns Which is the earth, and which the azure sky. But mark the change! A cloud, which floated in the atmosphere, An inconsiderable and feathery speck Of no proportions, now augmented, wears A threatening aspect, ominously dark; Enveloping the heaven's canopy In lowering shadow and portentous gloom; In pall of ambient obscurity. The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play Upon a background of sepulchral black; The growling thunders rumble a reply Of detonation awful and profound, To every corruscation's vivid gleam; In deep crescendo and fortissimo, In quavering tremolo and stately fugue Echoes, reverberates and dies away! But soon the sun, with smiling radiance, Through orifice, through rift and aperture, Invades the storm, and dissipates the clouds, Which scatter, cowering and ephemeral, Hugging the cliffs, and o'er the dire abyss Hover, in fleecy, ever changing form, And in a transient season disappear; Vanish, as man must vanish, and are gone. The moist precipitation of the storm Revives, refreshes and invigorates The various vegetation, and bedews Each blade of grass and floweret with a tear; As nature, weeping o'er the faults of man.

The day recedes, and twilight's neutral shade Succeeds in turn, and ushers in the night, Whose wings, outstretched and shadowy, descend, And in nocturnal mantle robes the scene. A hush prevails! Oppressive and profound; A silence, broken only by the breeze; A dormant quiet-essence and repose; Pervading calm and sweet oblivion,— As nature wrapt in soft refreshing sleep. Far in the east a solitary star Peeps through the sombre curtain of the night— In hesitating dubitation burns; In lonely splendor, flashes for a time, Till scattering celestial lights appear,— The vanguard of an astral multitude Of constellations, jewelled and serene, Which fill the lofty dome of space, until The heavens sparkle with the myriad Of spectra, nebulae and satellite; With stellar scintillation, and the orbs Of less refulgence, which, reflective shine; With falling star and trailing meteor; In one grand culmination, glittering To their Creator's glory! A burst of mellow lunar radiance Inundates and illuminates the scene; The waxing moon, in her meridian full, Her beam vicarious disseminates, And shining, hides with her superior light, The twinkling beauty of the firmament! At the stupendous and inspiring sight Of cosmic grandeur of the universe, A sense of vague and overwhelming awe; Of inconceivable immensity, The being's inmost recess permeates; And man, the atom in comparison, In spellbound admiration, mutely stands; With speculative meditation, dwells On that most solemn of impressive thoughts, The goodness of the Deity to man!^[A]