I went away, and found,
as others do, another and dearer love. Sitting on my horse by her side,
as she held in her beautiful palfrey, upon the summit of a cliff, which
rises grandly above, and brows the drab waters of the great
Mississippi, she pointed to the river, which resembled a great, white
serpent, winding among green fields and noble forests, for twenty miles
below. Her eyes were gray, and large, and lovely; her form was
towering, and her mien commanding. She grew with the scene. She was
born only a mile away, in the midst of a wild forest of walnut and
magnolia, amid towering hills, and cherished them and this mighty river
in childhood, until she partook of their grandeur and greatness. I
thought she was like the love of my youth, and I loved her, and told
her of it. The sun was waning--going down to rest, and, like a mighty
monarch, was folding himself away to sleep in gorgeous robes of crimson
and gold. In his shaded light, outstretching for fifty miles beyond the
river, lay, in sombre silence, the mighty swamp, with its wonderful
trees of cypress, clothed in moss of gray, long, and festooning from
their summits to the earth below, and waving, like banners, in the
passing wind.
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