He listened till he seemed to hear
A strain so soft and low
That whether in the mind or ear
The listener scarce might know.
With such a tone, so sweet and mild
The watching mother lulls her child.
Catterskill Falls is a narrative somewhat similar. Here the hero
is also a hunter- but of delicate frame. He is overcome with the
cold at the foot of the falls, sleeps, and is near perishing- but
being found by some woodmen, is taken care of, and recovers. As in the
Hunters Vision, the dream of the youth is the main subject of the
poem. He fancies a goblin palace in the icy network of the cascade,
and peoples it in his vision with ghosts. His entry into this palace
is, with rich imagination on the part of the poet, made to
correspond with the time of the transition from the state of reverie
to that of nearly total insensibility.
They eye him not as they pass along,
But his hair stands up with dread,
When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng
Till those icy turrets are over his head,
And the torrent's roar as they enter seems
Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams.
The glittering threshold is scarcely passed
When there gathers and wraps him round
A thick white twilight sullen and vast
In which there is neither form nor sound;
The phantoms, the glory, vanish all
Within the dying voice of the waterfall.
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