Nerved to another day of wandering.
The sky bent round
The awful domes of a most mighty temple,
Built by Omnipotent hands for nothing less
Than infinite worship. Here I stood in silence;
I had no words to tell the mingled thoughts
Of wonder and of joy that then came o'er me
Even with a whirlwind's rush."
James G. Percival.
Around me were strewn mementoes of the Revolution. My feet pressed the russet turf upon the ramparts of a ruined fort. Eastward, behind which were glowing the splendors of approaching day, stretched a range of broken hills, on whose every pinnacle the vigilant patriots planted batteries and built watch-fires. At their feet, upon a fertile terrace almost a mile in breadth, was the "Beverly House," from which Arnold escaped to the Vulture; old Phillipstown, around which a portion of the Revolutionary army was cantoned in 1781, * and intermediate localities, all rich with local traditions and historic associations. On the left, over Constitution Island, arose the smoke of the furnaces and forges at Cold Spring, a thriving village at the river terminus of a mountain furrow that slopes down from the eastern hills. A little beyond, and beneath the frowning crags of Mount Taurus, ** appeared "Under Cliff," the country seat of George P. Morris, Esq., lying like a pearl by the side of a sleeping giant, and just visible in the fading shadows of the mountains. Nowhere in our broad land is there a more romantic nook, or more appropriate spot for the residence of an American song-writer than this,