Poems / by James G. Percival [electronic text]

A PICTURE.

SCENE—The Valley of the Catskill River north of the Catskill Mountains.

THE glories of a clouded moonlit night— An union of wild mountains, and dark storms Gathering around their summits, or in forms Majestic, moving far away in light, Like pillared snow, or spectres wreathed in flame— Meanwhile, around the distant peaks a flow Of moonlight settles, seeming from below, Above the mountain's rude gigantic frame, An island of the heart, a home of bright, Unsullied souls, who, clad in purest white, Their bosoms stainless as their mantles, play Around the gilded rocks, and snowy lawns, And azure groves, in choirs like bounding fawns Around the throne of some imperial fay—

Again the dark clouds brood below; their fold A moment shrouds the mountain in dun shade, Like midnight blackness from a crater rolled, And flashing, as the glimmering of a blade Amid the wreaths of war-smoke, lightnings quiver, And crackling bolts the oak's bent branches shiver, And rumbling echoes from the hollow glens Roar, like the voice of lions in their dens Awing the silent desert—then the cloud, Careering on the whirlwind, lifts its shroud From off yon soaring pinnacle, and sweet, Soft moonlight there is sleeping, like the ray, Whose flashes on a chequered fountain play Light as the twinkling glance of fairies' feet, Or brood in burnished brightness on the stream, Or kiss the tufted bank of dewy flowers, As if consoling, in his boyish dream, Her shepherd through her own still magic hours— Such is the brightness on those rocky towers; And rising in an arch of double height, Soaring away beyond that cone, the sky Smiles to the harmonizing touch of light, Like the blue iris of a joyous eye— The moon is there in glory, and the stars Shrink from her fuller splendour, and grow dim Behind the veil of her effulgence. Airs, As if from Eden breathing, blow; clouds swim, Foamlike and fleecy, round the landscape's brim;

And heaving like a storm-swoln billow's crest, Rolls the wild tempest in the darkened west, Its flashes twinkling through the gloom, its peals Bellowing amid the purple glens; the rain, Scudding along the forest, bears the bow Wreathed round the flying storm-cloud, as it steals Stiller and stiller through the night—the stain Of braided colours, in a softer glow, Bends o'er the foaming river its tall arch, As if the spirits of the air might march From mountain on to mountain, and look down, In triumph, from the pictured circle's crown, On hamlets wrapped in slumber, meadows green And gemmed with rain-drops, woods, whose leaves are bowed With the dissolving richness of the cloud, And brown brooks flashing down the hills, and pouring Their tribute to the master stream, which wheels Through the rude valley, foaming, tumbling, roaring, And on the lonely wanderer, who steals Abroad in silence to that echoing shore, And gazing on the mad wave, and the sky, Which arches o'er the universe on high, And on the flying cohorts of the storm Hiding their frowns behind a seraph's form, With soul subdued, and awed, enchanted eye Can only bow before them and adore.