One effort more, and the long-desired eminence was attained; and we were a little nearer the evening star than we had ever been before. It was now the hour of twilight, and as we were about done over with fatigue, it was not long before we had pitched our leafy tent, eaten some supper, and yielded ourselves to the embrace of sleep,
“Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health.”
At midnight, a cooling breath of air having passed across my face, I was awakened from a fearful dream, which left me in a nervous and excited state of mind. A strange and solemn gloom had taken possession of my spirit, which was greatly enhanced by the doleful song of a neighbouring hemlock grove. Our encampment having been made a little below the summit of the Peak, and feeling anxious to behold the prospect at that hour from that point, I awakened my companion, and we seated ourselves upon the topmost rock, which was nearly bare of shrubs, but covered with a rich moss, softer and more beautiful than the finest carpet.
But how can I describe the scene that burst upon our enraptured vision. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, creating a lone, lost feeling, which I supposed could only be realized by a wanderer in an uninhabited wilderness, or on the ocean, a thousand leagues from home. Above, around, and beneath us—ay, far beneath us—were the cold, bright stars, and to the eastward, the “young moon with the old moon in her arms.” In the west were floating a little band of pearly clouds, which I almost fancied to be winged chariots, and that they were crowded with children, the absent and loved of other years, who, in a frolic of blissful joy, were out upon the fields of heaven. On one side of us reposed the long, broad valley of the Hudson, with its cities, towns, villages, woods, hills, and plains, whose crowded highway was diminished to a narrow girdle of deep blue. Towards the south, hill beyond hill, field beyond field, receded to the sky, occasionally enlivened by a peaceful lake. On our right, a multitudinous array of rugged mountains lay piled up, apparently as impassable as the bottomless gulf. To the north, Old High Peak, king of the Catskills, bared his bosom to the moonlight, as if demanding and expecting the homage of the world. Strange and magnificent, indeed, was the prospect from that mountain watch-tower; and it was with reluctance that we turned away, as in duty bound, to slumber until the dawn.