36 THE FORESTERS. 



Peace to their lone retreats while sheltered here* 

 May these deep shades to them be doubly dear ; 

 And Power's proud worshippers, wherever placed, 

 AVho saw such grandeur ruined and defaced, 

 I»y deeds of virtue to themselves secure 

 Those inborn joys, that, spite of kings, endure, 

 Though thrones and states from their foundations part; 

 The precious balsam of a blameless heart. 



All day up winding solitudes we past, 

 Steep hung o'er steep, as if at random cast ; 

 Through every opening towering groups were seen 

 Piled to the clouds, with horrid gulfs between ; 

 Thus (as the bard of old creation sings, 

 'Mongst other marvellous scenes and mighty thing*,) 

 When squabbling angels raised in heaven a rout, 

 And hills, uprooted, flew like hail about, 

 Thus looked, in those tremendecus days of yore, 

 Their field of battle when the lio-ht was o'er. 

 Impending cliffs, with ruined woods o'crgrown, 

 And mountains headlong over mountains thrown. 

 One vast pre-eminent ascent we scaled; 

 And high at last its level summit hailed, 

 There as we trod alongf, fatigued and slow. 

 Through parting woods the clouds appeared below, 

 And lo ! at once before our ravished view, 

 A scene appeared, astonishing and new. 

 Close on the brink of an abyss we stood. 

 Concealed till now by the impending wood, 

 Below, at dreadful depth, the river li 

 Shrunk to a brook 'midst little fields of hay ; 



