Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1853-04-08
Ernm the LOUSY
Mammoth Cave.
DY GEO. u. PRENTICE.

All day. as day is reckoued on the earth,
Eve Wandered in these dim and awful aslcs,
shut from the blue and Lreezy dome OF Heaven,
lille thoughts Wild dreur, and shatowy, have swep
a, Aeross my awe-struek soul, ike spectres Ger
The wiZarjs magic glass, or thunder clouds
Ger the blue waters VI the deep. And now
l II sit mo down upon yon broken rock
To muse upon the strange and solemn things
Of tais nysterious rea!a.
All day my steps
Have been amid the beautiful, the wild,
The gloomy, the terrific. Chrystal Gunts
Almost invisible in their sertae
Aud pure transparency-hiyh, pillard domes
With stars and flowers all frettsd like the halls
OF Oriental nonarchs-rivers dark
And drear and yoiceless as 0bivions stream
That flows through Deaths dim vale Of siienee-gu!fs
All fathomless, down which the ioosened rock
Piungcs until its far OF echoes come
Fainter and fainter like the dying roll
Of thunders in the distancS-stygian pools
Whose ngitated waves give back sound
Hollow and dismal, like the sulien roar
In The volcanoes depths-thesc these have LEFT
Their spell upon me, ard their memories
Have passed into my spirit, and are now
Bent with my being till they seem part
OF my own immortality.
Gods hand,
At the creation, followed out this vast
Domain OF dai kness, where no herb nor flower
Fer slrans amid the sands, nor dews nor rains
Nor blessed sanbeans fell with freshenirg power,
Nor gentle breeze its L len message told
n
swept DER the earth ere human footprints marked
This subterran,an desert Centuries
Like shadows came and passed, and not q sound
Was in this realm, save when at Intervals,
In the long lapse Of ages, some huge mass
Of oyerhanging rock fell laundering down,
Its echoes sounding through these corridors
moment, and then dying in hush
OF silence such brooded DER the earth
When Earth WAS chaos. The great mastodon,
The dreaded monster of the elder world,
Passed DER this mighty cavern, and his tread
Bent the old forest oaks like fragile reeds
And made Earth trrmblc-Armes in their pride
pereEancc have met above it in the shock
OF war with shout and groan and clarion blast
Aud the hoarse echoes OF the thunderg rgun-
The storm, the wLir, ind, and the hurricane
Have roared above 1t, and the bursting cloud
Sent down its red aud crashing thunder holt
Earthquakes have trampled DER it in Their wrath,
Rocking Ear,ls surface as the storn-wnd rccks
The old Ailantc-yet no sound Of these
Fer came down TO the everlasting depths
Of these dark solitudes.
How Oft We gaze
With awe or admiration on the new
And unfamiliar, Tut pass coldy by
The lovecr and the mishtier Wonderful
Is this lone world of darkness and Of gloom,
But far more wonderful yon outer world
Lit by the glorious son. These arches swell
SubliE- in lone aud din masIifcepce.
Bat how sub!iuiely uo0s blue canopy
Beleagurei with his burning cherubm
Keeping their watch eternal! Beautiful
Are ali the thousand snow hite gems that lie
In these mysterious chambers slsaming out
Amid the melancholy gloom, and wild
These rocky hills and cliffs and gulfs hut far
More beautiful anu Wild the things that greet
The wanderer in world Of ligbt-the stars
Floating ON high like islands OF the best
The autumn sunsets glowing like :be gate
OF far-of Paradise-tLe gorgeous clouds
On which the gorics Of the Earth and sky
Meet and commiugle--Earth's unnumtered flowers
All turning up their gentle eyes to Heayep-
The birds, with bright wings glancing in the sun,
Filling the air with rainbow miniatures
The green old forests surgiDr III the gale
The everlasting mountains whose peaks
The setting Lurns like an altar-fnme-
And Ocean, like q pure heart rendering back
Heavens perfect image, or in his wild wrath
leaving aud tossing like the stormy breast
OF cha!ncd giant in his agony.