The Highlands: Sarah Margaret Fuller

“Saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud;
No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold;
A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold,
The varied beauties of the scene enshroud.
Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud,
Did I receive the impress of that hour
Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power
Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed;
Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside,
And seek some smiling valley’s welcome warm,
But through the mountain’s very heart, thy pride
Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form.
Not even the ‘bulwarks of the world’ could bar
The inland fount from joining ocean’s war!”