Volume 5 — IN THE MOUNTAINS.
Reading edition
A line of Walter Savage Landor's, a poet for poets, was an especial favorite with Southey, and, we believe, with Lamb. It occurs in "Gebir," and drops from the lips of one of its characters, who, being suddenly shown the sea, exclaims,
"Is this the mighty ocean?—is this all?"
The feeling which underlies this line is generally the first emotion we have when brought face to face with the stupendous forms of Nature. It is the feeling inspired by mountains, the first sight of which is disappointing. They are grand, but not quite what we were led to expect from pictures and books, and, still more, from our own imaginations. The more we see mountains, the more they grow upon us, until, finally, they are clothed with a grandeur not, in all cases, belonging to them—our Mount Washingtons over-topping the Alps, and the Alps the Himmalayas. The poets assist us in thus magnifying them.
The American poets have translated the mountains of their native land into excellent verse. Everybody remembers Mr. Bryant's "Monument Mountain," for its touching story, and its clearly-defined descriptions of scenery.
Mr. Stedman has a mountain of his own, though perhaps only in Dream-land; and Mr. Bayard Taylor has a whole range of them, the sight of which once filled him with rapture:
"O deep, exulting freedom of the hills! O summits vast, that to the climbing view In naked glory stand against the blue! O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills Heaven's amethystine gaol! O speeding streams That foam and thunder from the cliffs below! O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams! O stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, And broad dim wonders of the world beneath! I summon ye, and mid the glare that fills The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills."
GLADNESS OF NATURE.—Midnight—when asleep so still and silent—seems inspired with the joyous spirit of the owls in their revelry—and answers to their mirth and merriment through all her clouds. The moping owl, indeed!—the boding owl, forsooth! the melancholy owl, you blockhead! why, they are the most cheerful, joy-portending, and exulting of God's creatures. Their flow of animal spirits is incessant—crowing cocks are a joke to them—blue devils are to them unknown—not one hypochondriac in a thousand barns—and the Man-in-the-Moon acknowledges that he never heard one utter a complaint.