Page:Rural Hours.djvu/274

Rh were doubtless crops of seed grass, timothy and clover, and not hay for fodder. The glowing August sunshine was just the light for such a scene, gilding the hanging wood, and filling the valleys with warmth, while a soft haze gave distance and importance to every height.

From the most elevated point crossed by the road we looked over two different valleys, with their several groups of broad hills, and many a swelling knoll. Looking down from a commanding position upon a mountainous country, or looking upward at the same objects, leave very different impressions on the mind. From below we see a group of mountains as pictures in one aspect only, but looking abroad over their massive forms from an adjoining height, we comprehend them much more justly; we feel more readily how much they add to the grandeur of the earth we live on, how much they increase her extent, how greatly they vary her character, climates, and productions. Perhaps the noble calm of these mountain piles will be more impressive from below; but when we behold them from a higher point, blended with this majestic quiet, traces of past action and movement are observed, and what we now behold seems the repose of power and strength after a great conflict. The most lifeless and sterile mountain on earth, with the unbroken sleep of ages brooding over its solitudes, still bears on its silent head the emotion of a mighty passion. It is upon the brow of man that are stamped the lines worn by the care and sorrow of a lifetime; and we behold upon the ancient mountains, with a feeling of awe, the record of earth's stormy history. There are scars and furrows upon the giant Alps unsoftened by the beaming sunlight of five thousand summers, over which the heavens have wept in vain for ages, which are