THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

95

Colorado’s wild steeps, and the rocks of Wyoming,

Their lone stunted pine trees and steep palisades,

And afar to the west the cold, bleak Rocky Mountains,

At whose feet the wild buffalo feeds in the glades,

Have each in their turn burst sublime on my vision,

While deserts all desolate gazed at the sky,

And away to the south rose the snow-crested Wasatch,

Bald, bleak and majestic, broad rolling and high.

I have stood where dead cities of sandstone columnar,

Loom up in their grandeur, all solemn and still,

And mused o’er the elements’ wars of the Ages That shaped them in symmetry wild at their will.

I have rolled down the bowlders.and waked the weird echoes, Where serpents affrighted, have writhed in their rage,

And watched the fleet antelope bound o’er the desert Through vast beds of cacti and grease-wood and sage.

I have sailed on the breast of the Deseret Dead Sea,

And bathed in its waters all tranquil and clear;

Have gazed on the mountains and valleys of Humboldt, Strange, primitive, awful, sad, silent and sere.

I have climbed and reclimbed the steep, wind-worn Sierras, Peered in their deep gorges all dark and obscure,

Dreamed under the shadows of giant Sequoias,

Or talked with wild Indians, reserved and demure.

I have trusted my bark on the billows of Ocean,

And watched them roll up and recede from the shore,

And have anchored within thy fine bay, San Francisco, Where the Golden Gate husheth the Ocean’s deep roar.

But not till I reached thy broad bosom, Columbia,

Where ever, forever, thou roll’st to the sea,

Did I feel that I’d found the full acme of grandeur,

Where song could run riot, or fancy go free.

Then my Pegasus changed his quick pen to a gallop, Pluterpe’s wind harp waked SEolian strains,

And the Nine in their rapture sang odes to the mountains, That preside over Oregon’s forests and plains.

Hoary Hood called aloud to the three virgin Sisters,

Who blushed with the roseate glow of the morn;

St. Helen and Ranier from over the border

Scowled and clouded their brows in pretension of scorn.

The Dalles of Columbia, set up on their edges,

Swirled through the deep gorges as onward they rolled,

Or over huge bowlders of basalt went dashing,

Dispersed into spray ere their story was told.

To the north and the south and the west rose the fir trees, With proportions colossal and graceful and tall,

Dark green in their hue, with a tinge of deep purple,

Casting shadows sometimes o’er the earth like a pall.

Bold headlands keep guard o’er the Oregon River,

Whose dashings are heard far away o’er the main,

As roaring and foaming and rushing forever,

He struggles with Ocean some ’vantage to gain.