The fall and the lake and the
glacier were almost equally bare; while the scraggy pines anchored in
the rock-fissures were so dwarfed and shorn by storm-winds that you
might walk over their tops. In tone and aspect the scene was one of the
most desolate I ever beheld. But the darkest scriptures of the mountains
are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make
themselves felt when one is alone.
I made my bed in a nook of the pine-thicket, where the branches were
pressed and crinkled overhead like a roof, and bent down around the
sides. These are the best bedchambers the high mountains afford--snug as
squirrel-nests, well ventilated, full of spicy odors, and with plenty of
wind-played needles to sing one asleep. I little expected company, but,
creeping in through a low side-door, I found five or six birds nestling
among the tassels. The night-wind began to blow soon after dark; at
first only a gentle breathing, but increasing toward midnight to a rough
gale that fell upon my leafy roof in ragged surges like a cascade,
bearing wild sounds from the crags overhead. The waterfall sang in
chorus, filling the old ice-fountain with its solemn roar, and seeming
to increase in power as the night advanced--fit voice for such a
landscape.
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