Thy waves are old companions, I shall see
A well-remembered form in each old tree
And hear a voice long-loved in thy wild minstrelsy.
Joseph Rodman Drake.
The Dover Stone Church, just west of Dover Plains Village, is also well worth a visit. Here a small stream has worn out a remarkable cavern in the rocks forming a gothic arch for entrance. It lies in a wooded gorge within easy walk from the village. Many years ago the writer of this handbook paid it an afternoon visit, and[page 128] the picture has remained impressed with wonderful vividness. The archway opens into a solid rock, and a stream of water issues from the threshold. On entering the visitor is confronted by a great boulder, resembling an old-fashioned New England pulpit, reaching half way to the ceiling. The walls are almost perfectly arched, and garnished here and there with green moss and white lichen. A rift in the rocks extends the whole length of the chapel, over which trees hang their green foliage, which, ever rustling and trembling, form a trellis-work with the blue sky, while the spray rising from behind the rock-worn altar seems like the sprinkling of holy incense. After all these years I still hear the voice of those dashing waters and dream again, as I did that day, of the brook of Cherith where ravens fed the prophet of old. It is said by Lossing, in his booklet on the Dover Stone Church, that Sacassas, the mighty sachem of the Pequoids and emperor over many tribes between the Thames and the Hudson River, was compelled after a disastrous battle which annihilated his warriors, to fly for safety, and, driven from point to point, he at last found refuge in this cave, where undiscovered he subsisted for a few days on berries, until at last he made his way through the territory of his enemies, the Mahicans, to the land of the Mohawks.
Tell me, where'er thy silver bark be steering,
Bright Dian floating by fair Persian lands,