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Show 2i 8 Early Western Travels [ Vol. rf and many a one among the cliffs of my native hills; but a midnight thunder- gust upon the broad prairie- plains of the West is more terrible than they. A more sublimely magnificent spectacle have I never beheld than that, when one of these broad- sheeted masses of purple light would blaze along the black bosom of the cloud, quiver for an instant over the prairie miles in extent, flinging around the scene a garment of flame, and then go out in darkness. " Oh night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman!" " Most glorious nightl Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, A portion of the tempest and of thee!" [ 198] And a sharer in the tempest surely was " a certain weary pilgrim, in an upper chamber " of a certain log- cabin of the prairie. Unhappily for his repose or quiet, had he desired either, the worthy host, in laudable zeal for a window when erecting his hut, had thought proper to neglect or to forget one of the indispensables for such a convenience in shape of sundry panes of glass. Wherefore, as is easy to perceive, said aperture commanding the right flank of the pilgrim's dormitory, the warring elements without found abundant entrance for a by- skirmish within. Sad to relate, the pilgrim was routed, " horse, foot, and dragoons;" whereupon, agreeable to Falstaff's discretionary views of valour, seizing upon personal effects, he beat a retreat to more hospitable realms. Greene County, III. |