AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
41 
summits, covered with verdure, and bristling with the 
sharp spires of a thousand forests. Many a time have I 
stood, surrounded by the mists and shadows that repose or 
tumble around its summit, to behold the bright coming of 
the dawn, or to admire the gradual departure of the twi- 
light, from its loftiest peak, “the last to parley with the 
setting sun. ” 4 Poets have always delighted to select the 
decaying glory of twilight, or the sober grandeur of even- 
ing, as the themes for their song, — but it seems to me, 
that they would find a far nobler theme for their verse, in 
the first grey breaking of the dawn, and its first rosy flush 
upon the mists and shadows that cover up the hills, as 
with a garment. The most unromantic mind could not 
contemplate such a scene with indifference. The spectator 
seems, as it were, to be surrounded with an illimitable sea 
of vapour, whose white surges perpetually boil and heave 
around him. If I look into the dome above me, my eye can- 
not penetrate the thick curtain of gloom that hangs around it; 
if I cast my eye into the abyss around and beneath, I can- 
not discern an object on the bosom of the green earth 
below, for “ shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.” 
“ At once that sea of vapour 
Parted away, and melting into air 
Rose round me, and I stood involved in light; 
As if a flame had kindled up, and wrapped me 
In its innocuous blaze. Away it rolled 
Wave after wave. Then climbed the highest rocks, 
Poured over them in surges, and then rushed 
Down glens and valleys, like a wintry torrent 
Dashed instant to the plain. It seemed a moment, 
And they were gone, as if the touch of fire 
At once dissolved them. Then I found myself 
Midway in air; — ridge after ridge below, 
Descended with their opulence of woods, 
Even to the dim-seen level, where a lake 
Flashed in the sun, and from it wound a line, 
Now silvery bright even to the farthest verge 
Of the encircling hills. A waste of rocks 
Was round me — but below how beautiful! 
How rich the plain! a wilderness of groves, 
And ripening harvests; while the sky of June — 
The soft blue of June, and the cool air, 
That makes it then a luxury to live 
Only to breathe it, and the busy echo 
Of cascades, and the voice of mountain-brooks, 
Stole with such gentle meanings to my heart, 
That where I stood seemed heaven.” 
The verdure of the earth is then lost and mingled in a 
thousand varied colours, made up of all the rich combina- 
tions of the rainbow. The sky itself then seems to lose its 
rich, deep azure, and the smoky vapours that then ascend 
its dome, and repose in its serene chamber, seem to have 
caught the variegated hues of the earth itself. Every moun- 
tain turn and lonely pool, every brimming river and subsi- 
L 
diary stream, is then richly tinged with a myriad of wavy 
hues, caught from the reflected woods, or the overhanging 
clouds. In the very depths of the woods the pine and fir, 
and a few other evergreens, may still retain their verdant 
tinge, the wild grapevines also, which are among the last 
to perish, may preserve their pure and lovely greenness, 
but every where else the eye is dazzled with the gaudiest 
combinations, of azure, purple, crimson, scarlet, yellow, 
orange, and gold. All these rich varieties of colour, ren- 
ders the wide drapery of the woods, inexpressibly lovely, 
whether it is shaken and tossed about by the clear moun- 
tain breeze, or remains utterly motionless in the profound 
silence; so profound that nothing is audible, save, perhaps, 
The sound of nutshells, by the squirrel dropped 
From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves. 
I was once, I remember, rambling alone on those hills, on 
a beautiful day in that period of the year, when the foliage, 
having attained the perfection of its colouring, and drop- 
ping in clouds from the trees, seemed to repeat that moni- 
tory lesson, which Autumn has been so poetically repre- 
sented as conveying. Nothing can exceed the glory of 
our native woods at the autumnal period, when the forest 
casts the leaf, and 
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard 
Though all the trees are still; 
And twinkle in the smoky light 
The waters of the rill. 
I had been rambling the whole day, with my gun, upon 
that mountain, so celebrated for gray squirrels, wild tur- 
keys, rattlesnakes, and various kind of game, and being 
fatigued with scaling precipices and straggling through 
almost impervious thickets, was about returning, when 
chance threw in my way a very eccentric, and at the same 
time agreeable companion. He was a stout woodsman, 
who had been employed like myself, in the pursuit of 
game, but with a very different weapon. Like the hardy 
pioneers of the West, he used the rifle only in his sports, 
disdaining to employ the ordinary weapon in common use 
with New-England Sportsmen. He had killed nothing 
but gray squirrels, but of these he had destroyed a great 
number. Each animal bore the mark of a single ball, and 
many of them were pierced directly through the head. He 
assured me that he rarely failed of despatching his victim, 
though perched on the loftiest limb of the forest. This 
feat is the more surprising, when we consider how closely 
the animal adheres to the body of the tree, whenever 
alarmed, and by this sagacious act protects itself from obser- 
vation, and offers but a very uncertain mark to its pursuers. 
I subsequently saw this man at certain “ turkey shoot- 
ings,” and was still more struck with the astonishing accu- 
