“Rhymes on West Point” by Charles Fenno Hoffman

Published Love’s Calendar, Lays of the Hudson, and Other Poems (1850)

I’ve trod thy mountain paths, thy valleys deep,

Through mazy thickets, and through tangled heath;

I’ve climb’d thy piled-up rocks, from steep to steep,

And gazed with rapture on the scene beneath.

The noble plain that lies embosom’d there,

The jutting headlands in thy mimic bay—

The stream, impatient of his curb’d career,

Sweeping through mighty mountains far away,

His bosom burnish’d by the setting sun,

Who, loath to leave his own illumined west,

Dyes with his hues the waves he shines upon,

And gilds the clouds which cradle him to rest.

’Tis sweet to watch from hence at close of day,

While shadows lengthen on the mountain side;

The sunbeams steal from peak to peak away,

And white sails gleam along the dusky tide.

And sweet to woman’s eye, at evening hour,

The gay parade that animates the plain,

When martial music lends its kindling power

To thrill the bosom with some stirring strain.