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(Excerpt)
WE reached the top—I scarce know how— | |
| And stood upon the mountain’s brow. | |
| Our weary limbs and wasted strength | |
| Are straightway all forgotten now. | |
| What vastness and sublimity | 5 |
| Were spread before our eager gaze! | |
| What wild and varied scenery! | |
| What pictures for the poet’s lays! | |
| Among the passing clouds we stood | |
| And looked about us, and below, | 10 |
| O’er mountains, valleys, lakes, and wood, | |
| And rivers in meandering flow, | |
| As lovely as God’s tinted bow. | |
| East, and below, lay Washoe Vale, | |
| The Village, and the shining Lake, | 15 |
| And Steamboat’s boiling springs, that pour | |
| Their scalding torrents through the crust | |
| And make their sounding caverns quake. | |
| As struggling currents hiss and roar, | |
| A hundred seething jets of steam | 20 |
| Out from the foaming founts are thrust, | |
| Along the white crustation seam, | |
| And in the sunlight palely gleam, | |
| Weird as the spectres of a dream, | |
| And yet we see them when awake. | 25 |
| Then next the gloomy peaks that break | |
| The morning sunbeams from the dale. | |
| Beyond, the desert dim and pale, | |
| The salt lagoons and Carson’s Sink. | |
| Then further, like a stolen link | 30 |
| From out Sierra’s mighty chain, | |
| Humboldt’s blue peaks rise from the plain. | |
| While far on the horizon’s brink, | |
| Full fifty weary leagues away, | |
| Reese River Mountains rise on high, | 35 |
| A jagged wall against the sky, | |
| The seeming eastern verge of day. | |
| Northward are spread the Truckee Meads, | |
| Where Truckee River winding speeds | |
| Toward the foothills, where lies hid | 40 |
| The haunted Lake of Pyramid; | |
| In which the flashing river pours | |
| The current of its liquid stores. | |
| There like a sullen pool it stands, | |
| Evaporates and feeds the sands; | 45 |
| The wonder of the desert vale, | |
| The scene of many an Indian tale | |
| Of love and valor, virtue, vice, | |
| And treachery, and cowardice. * * * * * | |
| Next, farther north, lies Crystal Peak; | 50 |
| And still beyond, the Mountain Twins | |
| Tower side by side so brown and bleak; | |
| Their height, and shape, and sameness wins | |
| Attention from the roaming eye | |
| By reason of their symmetry. | 55 |
| Northwest afar looms Lassen’s Butte, | |
| High towering, without dispute, | |
| The monarch of a wide domain | |
| Of mountain-range and vale and plain. | |
| While nearer, carpeted in green, | 60 |
| Sierra Valley lies between. | |
| Next, westward, spreading out below, | |
| Pride of the waters of the world, | |
| Sierras’ gem, famed Lake Tahoe, | |
| Among the craggy peaks enfurled, | 65 |
| Extends her mirrored sheet elate; | |
| Her eastern shore, the Silver State, | |
| Her western, California. | |
| There like a sleeping nymph she lay | |
| In isolation hid away. | 70 |
| From old Mount Rose range, side by side, | |
| Southward, a long majestic chain | |
| Of wooded mountains. Ophir Slide, | |
| A lofty summit cleft in twain | |
| By melting snows, has ta’en a ride | 75 |
| And caught a footing on the plain. | |
| We let our vision roam again, | |
| And catch a view of Carson’s stream, | |
| A river lovely as a dream; | |
| Fresh from the haunts of lasting snow, | 80 |
| It carries gladness in its flow | |
| Along the grassy vale below. | |
| Next, Silver Mountain strikes the view; | |
| Its proud companion, tried and true, | |
| The Great Mogul, is full in sight, | 85 |
| Full crowned in never-failing white, | |
| And chief among the Alpine crew. | |
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