And joy, like dew on trees and flowers, The distant landscape glows serene; The mountain rude, with steeps of gold, And those who walk within the sphere, For this one hour no breath of fear, Can trusting hearts annoy: Past things are dead, or only live 'Tis not that beauty forces then Her blessings on reluctant men, Its awful depth and heavenward height, Seems but my heart with wonder thrilling My sense with inspiration filling, Dulls the heart when rapture 's flown; If the rocky field of Duty, Built around with mountains hoar, Still is dearer than the Beauty Of the sky-land's colored shore. THE GLEN. The road to the Glen lies through the forest between Mount Carter and Mount Madison along the brawling Peabody River. Rev. H. White, in a book of remarkable incidents from the history of New England, tells us that a visitor from Massachusetts, by the name of Peabody, passed a night, many years ago, in an Indian's cabin on the height of land between the Saco and Androscoggin rivers. It must have been very near the spot where a clearing has been made in the Pinkham woods beyond the Glen House, under the walls of Tuckerman's ravine. The inmates of the Indian cabin, we are told, were roused in the night by a singular and dreadful noise, and in their terror rushed from the hut just in time to save their lives; for the cabin was swept away by a furious torrent that had burst from the hillside where there had been no spring before. No date is given in connection with the story. One of the mountain books informs us that this was, possibly, the origin of the branch of the Peabody River that runs in front of the Glen House. But as long as Washington, Adams, Carter, and Madison have received baptisms of rain and been sheeted with snow, the Peabody River has not ceased to wind through the Glen, and hurry with its increasing burden of water eight hundred feet down to the Androscoggin in Gorham. Doubtless a convulsion may have opened a pathway for some feeder of the Ellis River which flows into the Saco, or of the Peabody that pays tribute to the Androscoggin. But the river itself, whose curves we see and whose brawl we hear on the ride to the Glen House, was fed from the broad shoulders of Mount Washington, from the gorges of Jefferson, from the more even desolation of the pyramid of Madison, and from rains distilled more slowly through the deep forest soil of Carter, ages before any settler lifted an axe upon its bordering trees, or any Indian looked up from its banks with awe to the craggy seat of Manitou,—yes, Ere Adam wived, Ere the bees hived, Ere the lion roared, Ere the eagle soared. We are able to give a sketch of the Peabody stream from a point where it is watched by one of the great White Mountain summits. The following poem, which the accomplished author's kindness allows us to transfer to type from manuscript, was written after a morning visit from Gorham to the lower part of the Peabody, by Rev. William R. Alger of Boston: And, kneeling in the taintless air, Behold that guiltless bird! What brings To one long time in city pent, It is certainly a startling view that bursts upon us when we enter the Glen, either from Gorham or from Jackson, by the Pinkham road. No other public-house in the mountains, except those in North Conway, is so situated that Mount Washington is in view from its grounds. But North Conway is twenty miles distant. The Glen House is at the very base of the monarch; and Adams, Jefferson, Clay, and Madison bend around towards the east, with no lower hills to obstruct the impression of their height, so that from the piazza and front chamber windows of the hotel, the forest clothing of the five highest mountains of New England is distinctly seen, with all the clefts and chasms and the channelling of the rains, up to the bare ridge from which the desolate cones or splintered peaks ascend. In the Glen we are a little too near the mountains for the best landscape effects; and as the sun sets behind the great ridge, we cannot see the splendors and changes of the evening light poured over the range as from Jefferson, Bethlehem, and Lancaster. The best time for the effects of light on the peaks is early in the morning, when the rocky portions of the ridge are often burnished with surpassing beauty, or from four to six in the afternoon of midsummer, when the lights and shadows are most powerfully contrasted. A misty day, too, is a great privilege, when the fogs are not heavy and sulky, but break around the peaks in the graceful witcheries of their languid and unceasing change; or when, in preparation for a storm, heavy clouds roll up the ravines and pack themselves between the cones of the ridge, and pour over into the caldron-like gulfs to whirl around their sides, and, now and then, suffer one of the mountains to show itself seemingly doubled in height, while all its companions are smothered by the towering vapors. It was during such a scene that our first acquaintance with the Glen was made, many years ago, about sunset on a summer evening. The clouds had hidden Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Clay, and had piled their inky folds behind Mount Adams. But not a shred of vapor spotted its fore |