The New era. [volume] ([Portsmouth, Va.]) 1845-1847, 1845-11-22
From the Louisville Journal.
MAMMOTH CAVE.
BY GEORGE D. pRENr11


All day, as day is reckoned on the earth
Fve wandered in these dim and awful a,sles
Shut from the blue and breezy done of Heaven
"hiie thoughts, wild, drear, and shadowy have
Across nay awe struck soul, like spectres DER
The wizards magic glass, or thunder clouds
O'er the blue waters of the deep And now
III ait me down upon yon broken rsck
10 muse upon the strange and solemn tbinos
OF this mysterious realm.
Have been amid the beautiful. the wild,
The gloomy, the terrific. Chrystal founts
Almost invisible in their serene
And pure transParency-hig pillar'd domes
With stars and flowers all fretted like the halls
Oh Oriental monarchs-rivers dark
And drear and voiceless as oblivion's stream
That flows through deaths dim vale of silence
gulfs
All fatbomIess, down which the loosened rock
Plunges until it's far off echoes come
Fainter and fainter like the diving roll
OF thunders in the distance--Stygian pools
Whose agitated waves give back a sound
hollow and dismal, ike the sullen roar
In the volcanoes depths-these, these have left
Their spell upon me, and their memories
Rave passed into my spirit, and are now
Blent with my being till they seem a mart
OF my own immortality.
Gods hand.
AT the creation, beloved out this vast
DoInain OF darkness, where nor herb nor flower
Fer sprang amid the sands, nor dews nor r,;ns
Nor blessed sunbeams fell with fteshenino mower
Nor gentle breeze its Eden message told
Amid the dreadful gloom. Six thousand years
swept o er the earth ere human foot prints marked
This subterranean desert. Centuries
Like shadows came and passed, and not a sound
was IN this realm, save when at intervals,
IN the long lapse of ages, some huge mass
vi oVerhanging rock fell laundering down.
8 echoes sounding through these corridors
moment, and then dying in a hush
VI silence such as brooded DER the earth
when earth was chaos. The great mastodon
1.-THE dreaded monster of the elder world
raised DER this mighty cavern and his tread
Bent old M liza ke frao lilo
ana made Earth tTemblc-Armies in their pride
Pcrchance have met above it in the shock
vi war with shout and groan and clarion blast
ana the hoarse echoes of the thunder gun
The storm, the whirlwind, and the hurricane
Have Have roared above it; and the bursting cloud
sent down its red and crashing thunder bolt
Earthquakes have tramped DER it in their wrath
Rocking Earh's surface the storm wind rocks
F Fho old AtlanticEyet NO sound Of these
oi these dark solitudes.
How oft VIC gaze
With awe or admiration OIL the new
And unfamiliar, but pass coldly by
The loyelier and the mightier Wonderful
Is this lone world Of darkness and Of gloom,
But far more wonderful yon outer world
Lit by the glorious sun. These arches swell
Sublime in lone and dim magnifcencc.
But how submcT Gods blue canopy
Beleagured with his burning cbcruhim,
Keeping their watch eternal Beautiful
Arc all the thousand snow white gems that lie
In these mysterious chambers cleaning out
Amid the melancholy gloom, and wild
These rocky hills and cliffs, and CULTS but far
More wonderful and wild the things that Greet
The wauderer in world of Iight-the stsrs
Floating high like islands of the blest-
The autumn sunset glowing like the cate
OF far off Paradisc-the gorgeous clouds
On which the glorics Of Garth and sky
Meet and cOmning le-Earth's numbered Ao1erss
All turning Up their gentle eyes TO Heaven
The birds, with bright wings ganoing in the sun.
Filling the air with rainbow n9ipiatores-
The green old forest surging in the gale
The everlasting Mountains on whose peaks
The setting sun burns like an altar fame
And ocean, like pure heart rendering back
Heavens perfect image, in his wild wrath
Heaving aud tossing like the stormy breast.
OF chained gian. in his agony.