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William Cullen Bryant - Monument MountainWilliam Cullen Bryant - Monument Mountain
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Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature`s face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand`st, The haunts of men below thee, and around The mountain summits, thy expanding heart Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world To which thou art translated, and partake The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look Upon the green and rolling forest tops, And down into the secrets of the glens, And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, And swarming roads, and there on solitudes That only hear the torrent, and the wind, And eagle`s shriek. There is a precipice That seems a fragment of some mighty wall, Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, To separate its nations, and thrown down When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path Conducts you up the narrow battlement. Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,-- Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark With the thick moss of centuries, and there Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing To stand upon the beetling verge, and see Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall, Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene Is lovely round; a beautiful river there Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, The paradise he made unto himself, Mining the soil for ages. On each side The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise The mighty columns with which earth props heaven.   There is a tale about these reverend rocks, A sad tradition of unhappy love, And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, When over these fair vales the savage sought His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, And a gay heart. About her cabin-door The wide old woods resounded with her song And fairy laughter all the summer day. She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, By the morality of those stern tribes, Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long Against her love, and reasoned with her heart, As simple Indian maiden might. In vain. Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said, Upon the Winter of their age. She went To weep where no eye saw, and was not found When all the merry girls were met to dance, And all the hunters of the tribe were out; Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk The shining ear; nor when, by the river`s side, Thay pulled the grape and startled the wild shades With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames Would whisper to each other, as they saw Her wasting form, and say _the girl will die_.   One day into the bosom of a friend, A playmate of her young and innocent years, She poured her griefs. "Thou know`st, and thou alone," She said, "for I have told thee, all my love, And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life. All night I weep in darkness, and the morn Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed, That has no business on the earth. I hate The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends Have an unnatural horror in mine ear. In dreams my mother, from the land of souls, Calls me and chides me. All that look on me Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out The love that wrings it so, and I must die."   It was a summer morning, and they went To this old precipice. About the cliffs Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, Like worshippers of the elder time, that God Doth walk on the high places and affect The earth-o`erlooking mountains. She had on The ornaments with which her father loved To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, And bade her wear when stranger warriors came To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, And decked the poor wan victim`s hair with flowers, And prayed that safe and swift might be her way To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. Beautiful lay the region of her tribe Below her--waters resting in the embrace Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades Opening amid the leafy wilderness. She gazed upon it long, and at the sight Of her own village peeping through the trees, And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof Of him she loved with an unlawful love, And came to die for, a warm gush of tears Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low And the hill shadows long, she threw herself From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped Upon the mountain`s southern slope, a grave; And there they laid her, in the very garb With which the maiden decked herself for death, With the same withering wild flowers in her hair. And o`er the mould that covered her, the tribe Built up a simple monument, a cone Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed, Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. And Indians from the distant West, who come To visit where their fathers` bones are laid, Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day The mountain where the hapless maiden died Is called the Mountain of the Monument.
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