. Recollections of a lifetime : or men and things I have seen : in a series of familiar letters to a friend : historical, biographical, anecdotical, and descriptive . hraiii,While I look upward to thee. It would seemAs if God pourd thee from his hollow hand,And hnng liis bow upon thy awful front;And spoke in that loud voice that seemd to liimWho dwelt in Patmos for his Saviours sake, The sound of many waters ; and had badeThy flood to chronicle the ages back,And notch his centries in the eternal rocks ! He had hardly done reading, wdien the boy handed him the lines—on a small scr
. Recollections of a lifetime : or men and things I have seen : in a series of familiar letters to a friend : historical, biographical, anecdotical, and descriptive . hraiii,While I look upward to thee. It would seemAs if God pourd thee from his hollow hand,And hnng liis bow upon thy awful front;And spoke in that loud voice that seemd to liimWho dwelt in Patmos for his Saviours sake, The sound of many waters ; and had badeThy flood to chronicle the ages back,And notch his centries in the eternal rocks ! He had hardly done reading, wdien the boy handed him the lines—on a small scrap ofrather coarse paper—and told him to come again inhalf an hour. Before this time had elapsed, he hadfinished, and read me the following stanza : Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,That hear the question of that voice sublime ? I. Brainard ^vriting The Fall of Niagara. Vol. 2, p. 14b. 1 HISTORICAL, ANECDOTICAL, ETC. 149 Oh! what are all the notes that ever rungFrom wars vain trumpet by thy thundering side ?Yea, what is all the riot man can make,In his short life, to thy unceasing roar ?And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to HimWho drownd a world, and heapd the waters farAbove its loftiest mountains ? A light wave,That breathes and whispers of its Makers might. These lines having been furnished, Brainarcl lefthis of&ce, and we returned to Miss Lucys parlor. Heseemed utterly unconscious of what he had done. Ipraised the verses, but he thought I only spoke warm-ly from friendly interest. The lines went forth, andproduced a sensation of delight over the whole coun-try. Almost every exchange paper that came to theof&ce had extracted them : even then he would scarcebelieve that he had done any thing very clever. Andthus, under these precise circumstances, were com-posed the most suggestive and sublime stanza
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