View from Griswold Hill on Staten Island, N. Y. [pp. 3]

1848.] Vzew from Griswold Hill, on Staten Island, N. Y 3
VIEW FROM GRISWOLD HILL,
ON STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.
BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.
Earth, sea and( sky,-in richest hues array'd,How spreads the glorious panorama round,As from the casement of a princely dome
We revel in its charms. From this bold height,
O'er wood-crown'd hill, and mountain thinly veil'd,
Villa and spire, and castellated roof,
The commerce of the world. The mother-realm
Sends on its tide her daily embassies,
While France invokes the potency of steam,
To wing her message. From his ice-clad pines
The Scandinavian-thie grave, turbaned Turk,
The Greek mercurial, even the hermit-sons
Of sage Confucius, like the sea-bird, spread
Their pinions toward this city of the West,
That like a mnoney-changer for the earth
Sits in her temple-dome. Yon ocean-gate,
With telegraphic touch, doth chronicle
Tile rushing tide of sea-worn emigrants,
Sick, sad, or famisled. With what anxious eyes
How glide the soft beams of the westering sun They scan the coast, that gives the stranger bread,,
To sleep with ocean blue. Perchance, a grave. And he, who ventureth forth
LIere, at our side
Frowns Fort Knyphausen, o'er whose ruin'd base
Close-woven cedars stretch their arras dark,
Hiding the bastions, whence in olden time,
The whisker'd Hessian, bought with British gold,
Aim'd at my Country's heart.
With fairy grace,
New-Jersey's shiores expand. Hillock and grove,
Hamlet and town, and lithe promontory,
Engird this islet, as a mother clasps
A beauteous dau2ghter. But the opposing straits,
With their deep line of indentation, bar
The full embrace. Broad spreads the billowy bay,
Forever peopled by the gliding sail,
From the slight speck where the rude fisher toils,
To that, which, like a mountain, treads the wave,Or those, that mov'd by latent fires, compel
The awe-struck flood.
See,-from its northern home
The bold, unswerving IHudson, that hath burst
The barrier of his palisades, to gaze
On all this wondrous beauty, and to swell
With lordly tribute, what it views with pride.
Behold the peerless city, lifting highi
Its hundred spires and edg'd with bristling masts,
In whose strong breast beat half a million hearts
Instinct with hurrying life. The grey-hair'd man
Remermbereth well, how the dank waters crept
Where now, in queenly pomp, her court she holds.
Next, gleams the Isle, where lengthen'd line of
coast
Is lov'd by Ceres, and where varying swells
The rural landscape. On its western height
A noble city towers, and'Death its wing
One, whose pure domes are wrapp'd in hallow'd
shades,
Silent, yet populous, and through whose gates
Press on the unreturning denize:Is.
Oh Greenwood! loveliest spot for last repose,
When the worn p)ilgrimrage of life is o'er,
Even thy dim outline, through the haze, is dear.
Onward, by Coney Island's silvery reef
To where between its lowly valves of sand
Opes the highway of nations. Through it, pours
The willing prisoner of some white-winged ship,
Leaving his native land, perchance, to seek
Hygeia o'er the wave, perchance, to test
What spells do linger round the classic climes
That woke his boyhood's dream,-how fails his
heart
As the strong hills of Never-Sink withdraw
Their misty guardianship. Speech may not tell,For well I know its poverty to paint
The rapture, when the homeward glance descries
With patriot love, that clitme, whose novelties,
Whose forms of unimagined life, eclipse
The worn-out wonders of an Older World
That ever, with its ghostly finger, points
To things that were.
Oh great and solemn Deep!Profound enchanter of the musing thought,
Release my strain, that to this beauteous Isle
So long a visitant, my thanks may flow,
Warm, though inadequate. Autumnal tints
Float in filll brilliance over copse and grove,
Where erst the Red Man rested on his bow,
Wrapp'd in brief reverie,'mid the haunts* he lov'd,
But whence his exil'd feet so soon must part,
Leaving no trace behind.
Still, lingering flowers,
The resonance of summer, cheer the nooks,
Where the sun longest smiles. Thou fairest Isle
Of all my feet hath trodden,-purest gemrn
Amid the sparkling waters of the bay,I grieve to say farewell. And for the sake
Of those I love, and for the memories sweet,
And sacred hospitalities, that cling
Around the mansion whence my steps depart,Peace be within thy palace homes, —that crest
Each sea girt hill, and'neath the humblest roofs
That nestle'mid thy dells: and when I dream
Of some blest Eden that surviv'd the fall,That dream shall be of thee.
* The Indian name for Staten -Island was Monacnong, or
Enchanted Woods, signifying admiration of its delightful
forest scenery.
3
1848.]
View from Griswold Hill, on Staten Island, N. Y