Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II " How beautiful is this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself! " Manfred. " The woods — oh! solemn are the boundless woods Of the great Western World when day declines, And louder sounds the roll of distant floods." Hemans. Long before the dawn on the morning succeeding our departure we were roused from our rest by the hissing of steam and the rattling of machinery as our boat moved slowly out from beneath the high banks and lofty sycamores of the river-side, where she had in safety been moored for the night, to resume her course. Withdrawing the curtain from the little rectangular window of my stateroom, the dark shadow of the forest was slumbering in calm magnificence upon the waters; and glancing upward my eye, the stars were beaming out in silvery brightness; while all along the eastern horizon, where " The gray coursers of the morn Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs And drive it through the sky," [22] rested a broad, low zone of clear heaven, proclaiming the coming of a glorious dawn. The hated clang of the bell-boy was soon after heard resounding far and wide in querulous and deafening clamour throughout the cabins, vexing the dull ear of every drowsy man in the terrible language of Macbeth's evil conscience, "sleep no more!" In a very desperation of self-defence I arose. The mists of night had not yet wholly dispersed, and the rack and fog floated quietly upon the placid bosom of the stream, or ascended in ragged masses from the dense foliage upon its banks. All this melted gently away like " the baselessfabric of a vision," and " the beauteous eye of day " burst forth in splendour, lighting up a scene of unrivalled loveliness. Much, very much has been written of " the beautiful Ohio;" the pens of an hundred tourist...