When, darkling o'er the mountain's summit hoar,
Portentous hangs the black and sulph'rous cloud,
When lightnings flash, and awful thunders roar,
Great Nature sings to thee her anthem loud.
The rocks reverberate her mighty song,
And crushing woods the pealing notes prolong.
The storm is pass'd; o'er fields and woodlands gay,
Gemm'd with bright dew-drops from the eastern sky,
The morning sun now darts his golden ray,
The lark on fluttering wing is poised on high;
Too pure for earth, he wings his way above,
To pour his grateful song of joy and love.
Hark! from the bowels of the earth, a sound
Of awful import! From the central deep
The struggling lava rends the heaving ground,
The ocean-surges roar - the mountains leap -
They shoot aloft, - Oh, God! the fiery tide
Has burst its bounds, and rolls down Etna's side.
Thy will is done, great God! the conflict's o'er,
The silvery moonbeams glance along the sea;
The whispering waves half ripple on the shore,
And lull'd creation breathes a prayer to thee!
The night-flower's incense to their God is given,
And grateful mortals raise their thoughts to heaven.
J.W.D.M.
CHAPTER XXV
THE WALK TO DUMMER
We trod a weary path through silent woods,
Tangled and dark, unbroken by a sound
Of cheerful life. The melancholy shriek
Of hollow winds careering o'er the snow,
Or tossing into waves the green pine tops,
Making the ancient forest groan and sigh
Beneath their mocking voice, awoke alone
The solitary echoes of the place.
Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths
of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago, it
might not inaptly have been termed "The last clearing in the world."
Nor to this day do I know of any in that direction which extends
beyond it. Our bush-farm was situated on the border-line of a
neighbouring township, only one degree less wild, less out of
the world, or nearer to the habitations of civilisation than
the far-famed "English Line," the boast and glory of this terra
incognita.
This place, so named by the emigrants who had pitched their tents
in that solitary wilderness, was a long line of cleared land,
extending upon either side for some miles through the darkest and
most interminable forest. The English Line was inhabited chiefly
by Cornish miners, who, tired of burrowing like moles underground,
had determined to emigrate to Canada, where they could breathe the
fresh air of Heaven, and obtain the necessaries of life upon the
bosom of their mother earth. Strange as it may appear, these men
made good farmers, and steady, industrious colonists, working as
well above ground as they had toiled in their early days beneath it.
All our best servants came from Dummer; and although they spoke a
language difficult to be understood, and were uncouth in their
manners and appearance, they were faithful and obedient, performing
the tasks assigned to them with patient perseverance; good food and
kind treatment rendering them always cheerful and contented.
