Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/319

 NEW HAMPSHIRE HILLS. 297

��NEW HAMPSHIRE HILLS.

��BY GEORGE BANCROFT GRIFFITH.

' Twas well immortal Milton thanked the Lord, For mountains, everlasting peaks, round which Delight to anchor islands of the sky ! Famed Washington and proud Kearsarge I view, Grand Monadnock, Chocorua's line of blue ! Sandwich and Sunapee, Moosehillock fair ; A sea of summits rising everywhere !

Those tall and pathless crags whose shadows sleep All day in linked embrace, far, far below, Where verdant vales are bathed in welton light, And lonely streams o'er beds of granite flow.

Go forth with me when kiss of rosy dawn First warms the naked crest of yonder mount, Or when the ling'ring sunsets, haloed wreath O'er hoary brow dissolves in rainbow tints, And ye, my thoughts divining, would exclaim : " Were stony eyes of that huge Mountain Man But blessed with sight how he amazed would scan, And with a voice of thunder e'er extol, The matchless charms that Nature's hand unrolls,"

Though 'gainst these lofty pinnacles are hurled The lightning's fiery bolt, like arrows thrown At each proud, flinty heart, they're set To music evermore ! for tinkling rills Gush swiftly from each breast of rock, and, lo ! The cataract's glitt'ring line, from melted snow, Leaves glowing, moss and lichens richly spread Where foot of man has never dared to tread ! And when a stream doth sound in joyful leap God's praise forever on the flower-hung steep ! The wild cry of the plover echoes there, There, too, the idle raven answers back The taunt of eagles shrieked from eyre high, And all the deep ravines are filled with sound, When storm-king's chariot rolls along the sky.

Ascending billowy slopes, I seaward look, When purple haze that rims old ocean melts As Day-God rolleth up, and blue expanse Lies boundless, sparkling, gladdening the eye. White with their winged ships, the waters gleam. And Portsmouth bar and Isles of Shoals appear, And the tall beacons shining white and clear ; White sea-gulls sail with pinions widely spread, Or fearless dip, or sweep in throngs afar.

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