Has Death no triumph-hours, save on the battle-day?
Fitz-Greene Halleck.
CROW-NEST, FROM BULL HILL, WEST POINT.
IT is true of the Hudson, as of all other rivers, that to be seen to advantage it should form the middle, not the foreground, of the picture. Those who go to Albany by steam have something the same idea of the scenery of West Point that an inside passenger may have of the effect of a stage-coach at top-speed. It is astonishing how much foreground goes for in landscape; and there are few passes of scenery where it is more naturally beautiful than those of the Hudson. In the accompanying drawing, the picturesque neighborhood of Undercliff, the seat of General Morris, lies between the river and the artist, and directly opposite stands the peak of Crow Nest, mentioned in the description of West Point.
Crow Nest is one of the most beautiful mountains of America for shape, verdure, and position; and when the water is unruffled, and the moon sits on his summit, he looks like a monarch crowned with a single pearl. This is the scene of the first piece-work of fancy which has come from the practical brain of America,—the poem of “The Culprit Fay.” The opening is so descriptive of the spot that it is quite in place here; and to those who have not seen the poem (as most European readers have not) it will convey an idea of a production which, in my opinion, treads close on the heels of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream:”—
’Tis the middle watch of a summer’s night,—
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;