IV. TRENTON FALLS. JULY. IN Longfellow's delicious poem to the Waif, he invokes the singing of a song of rest. Sometimes, urges the poet, let us escape the battle-cry and the bugle-call, and repose that we may the better wrestle. "Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer." Trenton is that summer-song of rest. Only lovely images haunt its remembrance, beautiful as the Iris which in some happy moment of the ramble through the ravine, spans the larger or lesser Fall. Beauty and grace are its praises. You hear them from those who are either hurrying to the grandeur of the Niagara, or from those who, returning, step aside at Utica to enjoy the music of the greater cataract, softened here at Trenton into an exquisite echo. It matters little when you see these Falls, whether before or after Niagara. The charm of Trenton is unique, and you will not scorn the violets and lilies because you knelt to the passion-flowers and roses. In the prime of a summer which, from the abundant rains, is singularly unworn and unwithered, a day at Trenton, because of its rare and picturesque but harmonious attractions, is like a feast of flowers. In some choice niche of memory you will lay it aside, not as a sublime statue or a prophetic and solemn picture, but as a vase most delicate, symmetrical if slight, and chased with pastoral tracery. From Albany-its campagna-like suburbs once passed, a pleasant day made pleasant pictures of the broad, rich, tranquil landscape. The country gained, possibly, in tenderness of aspect that I glanced at it in the intervals of reading Hawthorne's "Seven Gables," and as the heat increased, the monotonous clatter of the cars grew soothing as the airy harpsichord of the fair Alice, dead centuries ago, and persuaded my mind into Clifford's vague and dreamy mood. Floating thus along the fascinating verge of slumber, I opened my eyes upon the placid picturesqueness of the actual landscape, and anon closed them to behold, instantly, the enchanted scenery of sleep. It was a meet |