As afternoon advances, novelties, far-reaching splendors,
accumulate under the bright sun in this pure air. But I had better
commence with the day.
The confronting of Platte canon just at dawn, after a ten miles' ride
in early darkness on the rail from Denver--the seasonable stoppage at
the entrance of the canon, and good breakfast of eggs, trout, and nice
griddle-cakes--then as we travel on, and get well in the gorge, all
the wonders, beauty, savage power of the scene--the wild stream of
water, from sources of snows, brawling continually in sight one
side--the dazzling sun, and the morning lights on the rocks--such
turns and grades in the track, squirming around corners, or up and
down hills--far glimpses of a hundred peaks, titanic necklaces,
stretching north and south--the huge rightly-named Dome-rock--and as
we dash along, others similar, simple, monolithic, elephantine.
AN EGOTISTICAL "FIND"
"I have found the law of my own poems," was the unspoken but
more-and-more decided feeling that came to me as I pass'd, hour after
hour, amid all this grim yet joyous elemental abandon--this plenitude
of material, entire absence of art, untrammel'd play of primitive
Nature--the chasm, the gorge, the crystal mountain stream, repeated
scores, hundreds of miles--the broad handling and absolute
uncrampedness--the fantastic forms, bathed in transparent browns,
faint reds and grays, towering sometimes a thousand, sometimes two
or three thousand feet high--at their tops now and then huge masses
pois'd, and mixing with the clouds, with only their outlines, hazed in
misty lilac, visible.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246