- As the light increased I discovered around
me an ocean of mist, which by chance reached up exactly to the
base of the tower, and shut out every vestige of the earth, while
I was left floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on
my carved plank, in cloudland; a situation which required no aid
from the imagination to render it impressive. As the light in
the east steadily increased, it revealed to me more clearly the
new world into which I had risen in the night, the new _terra
firma_ perchance of my future life. There was not a crevice left
through which the trivial places we name Massachusetts or Vermont
or New York could be seen, while I still inhaled the clear
atmosphere of a July morning, - if it were July there. All around
beneath me was spread for a hundred miles on every side, as far
as the eye could reach, an undulating country of clouds,
answering in the varied swell of its surface to the terrestrial
world it veiled. It was such a country as we might see in
dreams, with all the delights of paradise. There were immense
snowy pastures, apparently smooth-shaven and firm, and shady
vales between the vaporous mountains; and far in the horizon I
could see where some luxurious misty timber jutted into the
prairie, and trace the windings of a water-course, some
unimagined Amazon or Orinoko, by the misty trees on its brink.
As there was wanting the symbol, so there was not the substance
of impurity, no spot nor stain. It was a favor for which to be
forever silent to be shown this vision. The earth beneath had
become such a flitting thing of lights and shadows as the clouds
had been before. It was not merely veiled to me, but it had
passed away like the phantom of a shadow, , and
this new platform was gained. As I had climbed above storm and
cloud, so by successive days' journeys I might reach the region
of eternal day, beyond the tapering shadow of the earth; ay,
"Heaven itself shall slide,
And roll away, like melting stars that glide
Along their oily threads."
But when its own sun began to rise on this pure world, I found
myself a dweller in the dazzling halls of Aurora, into which
poets have had but a partial glance over the eastern hills,
drifting amid the saffron-colored clouds, and playing with the
rosy fingers of the Dawn, in the very path of the Sun's chariot,
and sprinkled with its dewy dust, enjoying the benignant smile,
and near at hand the far-darting glances of the god. The
inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy
under-side of heaven's pavement; it is only when seen at a
favorable angle in the horizon, morning or evening, that some
faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds are revealed. But
my muse would fail to convey an impression of the gorgeous
tapestry by which I was surrounded, such as men see faintly
reflected afar off in the chambers of the east. Here, as on
earth, I saw the gracious god
"Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
. . . . . .
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."
But never here did "Heaven's sun" stain himself.
But, alas, owing, as I think, to some unworthiness in myself, my
private sun did stain himself, and
"Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly wrack on his celestial face," -
for before the god had reached the zenith the heavenly pavement
rose and embraced my wavering virtue, or rather I sank down again
into that "forlorn world," from which the celestial sun had hid
his visage, -
"How may a worm that crawls along the dust,
Clamber the azure mountains, thrown so high,
And fetch from thence thy fair idea just,
That in those sunny courts doth hidden lie,
Clothed with such light as blinds the angel's eye?
How may weak mortal ever hope to file
His unsmooth tongue, and his deprostrate style?
O, raise thou from his corse thy now entombed exile!"
In the preceding evening I had seen the summits of new and yet
higher mountains, the Catskills, by which I might hope to climb
to heaven again, and had set my compass for a fair lake in the
southwest, which lay in my way, for which I now steered,
descending the mountain by my own route, on the side opposite to
that by which I had ascended, and soon found myself in the region
of cloud and drizzling rain, and the inhabitants affirmed that it
had been a cloudy and drizzling day wholly.
But now we must make haste back before the fog disperses to the
blithe Merrimack water.
Since that first "Away! away!"
Many a lengthy reach we've rowed,
Still the sparrow on the spray
Hastes to usher in the day
With her simple stanza'd ode.
We passed a canal-boat before sunrise, groping its way to the
seaboard, and, though we could not see it on account of the fog,
the few dull, thumping, stertorous sounds which we heard,
impressed us with a sense of weight and irresistible motion. One
little rill of commerce already awake on this distant New
Hampshire river. The fog, as it required more skill in the
steering, enhanced the interest of our early voyage, and made the
river seem indefinitely broad. A slight mist, through which
objects are faintly visible, has the effect of expanding even
ordinary streams, by a singular mirage, into arms of the sea or
inland lakes. In the present instance it was even fragrant and
invigorating, and we enjoyed it as a sort of earlier sunshine, or
dewy and embryo light.
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!
