We found ourselves at Bray about ten in the morning, with that
disposition to be pleased which seldom allows itself to be
disappointed; and the sense of our escape from every thing not only of
routine, but of regularity, into the country of mountains and glens and
valleys and waterfalls, inspired us with a sort of gay wildness and
independence, that disposed us to find more of the romantic and
picturesque than perhaps Nature ever intended. If, therefore, gentle
reader, thou shouldest here meet with any extravagances at which thy
sober feelings may be inclined to revolt, bethink thee, that the
immortal Syntax himself, when just escaped from the everlasting dulness
of a school, did descry a landscape even in a post,--a circumstance
which probably no one had ever discovered before.
We proceeded to the Dargle along the small river whose waters were
flowing gently towards us after having passed through the beautiful
scenes we were to visit. It was here a tranquil stream, and its banks
but thinly clothed; but at the opening of the Dargle-gate, the scene
was instantly changed. At once we were immersed in a sylvan wilderness,
where the trees were thronging and crowding around us; and the river
had suddenly changed its tone, and was sounding wildly up the wooded
bank that sloped down to its edge. We precipitated ourselves towards
the sound,--and when we stopped and looked around us, the mountains,
the champaign, and almost the sky had disappeared. We were at the
bottom of a deep winding glen, whose steep sides had suddenly shut out
every appearance of the world that we had left. At our feet a stream
was struggling with the multitude of rude rocks, which Nature, in one
of her primeval convulsions, had flung here and there in masses into
its current; sometimes uniting into irregular ledges, over which the
water swept with impetuosity;--sometimes standing insulated in the
stream, and increasing the energies of the river by their
resistance;--sometimes breaking forward from the bank, and giving a
bolder effect to its romantic outline. The opposite side of the glen,
that rose steeply and almost perpendicularly from the very brink of the
river, was one precipice of foliage from top to bottom, where the trees
rose directly above each other (their roots and backs being in a great
degree concealed by the profusion of leaves in those below them,) and a
broken sunbeam now and then struggled through the boughs, and sometimes
contrived to reach the river.
The side along which we proceeded was equally high, but more sloping
and diversified; and the wooding, at one time retiring from the stream,
while at another a close cluster of trees of the freshest verdure
advanced into the river, bending over it in attitudes at once graceful
and fantastic, and forming a picturesque and luxuriant counterpart to
the little naked promontories of rock which we before observed. Both
sides of the glen completely enclosed us from the view of every thing
external, except a narrow tract of sky just over our heads, which
corresponded in some degree to the course of the stream below; so that
in fact the sun seemed a stranger, only occasionally visiting us from
another system. Sometimes while we were engaged in contemplating the
strong darkness of the river as it rushed along, and the pensive
loveliness of the foliage overhanging it, a sudden gleam of sunshine
quietly yet instantaneously diffused itself over the scene, as if it
smiled almost from some internal perception of pleasure, and felt a
glow of instinctive exhilaration. Thus did we wander from charm to
charm, and from beauty to beauty, endlessly varying, though all
breathing the same wild and secluded luxury, the same poetical
voluptuousness. This new region, set apart from the rest of creation,
with its class of fanciful joys attached to it, seemed allotted to some
creature of different elements from our own,--some airy being, whose
only essence was imagination. As the thought occupied us, we opened
upon a new object which seemed to confirm it. The profuse wooding which
formed the steep and rich barrier of the opposite side of the river,
was suddenly interrupted by a huge naked rock that stood out into the
stream, as if it had swelled forward indignantly from the touch of
cultivation, and, proud of its primitive barrenness, had flung aside
the hand that was dispensing beauty around it, and that would have
intruded upon its craggy and original majesty. It was here that our
imaginations fixed a residence for the Genius of the river and the
spirit of the Dargle. A sort of watery cell was formed by the
protrusion of this bold figure from the one side, and the thick foliage
that met it across from the other, and threw a solemn darkness over the
water. In front, a fragment of rock stood in the middle of the current,
like a threshold, and a spreading tree hung its branches directly over
it, like a spacious screen in face of the cell. From this we began
gradually to ascend, until _our_ side became nearly as steep as the
opposite, while the wooding was thickening on both at every step; so
that the glen soon formed one steep and magnificent gulf of foliage.
The river at a vast distance, almost directly below us; the glad
sparkling and flashing of its waters, only occasionally seen, and its
wild voice mellowed and refined as it reached us through thousands of
leaves and branches; the variety of hues, and the mazy irregularity of
the trees that descended from our feet to the river,--were finely
contrasted with the heavier and more monotonous mass that met it in the
bottom, down the other side.
In stepping back a few paces, we just descried, over the opposite
boundary, the top of Sugar-loaf, in dim and distant perspective. The
sensations of a mariner, when, after a long voyage without sight of
shore, he suddenly perceives symptoms of land where land was not
expected, could not be more novel and curious, than those excited in us
by this little silent notice of regions which we had literally
forgotten,--so totally were we engrossed in our present enchantment,
and so much were our minds, like our view, bounded by the sides of the
glen. This single object let in a whole train of recollections and
associations: but the charm could not be more gradually and more
pleasingly broken. The glen, still retaining all its characteristic
luxuriance, began gracefully to widen,--the country to open upon us,
and the mountains to rise; and at length, after a gentle descent, we
passed the Dargle-gate, and found ourselves standing over the
delightful valley of Powerscourt. It was like the transition from the
enjoyments of an Ariel to those of human nature,--from the blissful
abode of some sylphic genius, to the happiest habitations of mortal
men,--from all the restless and visionary delights of fancy, to the
calm glow of real and romantic happiness. Our minds that were before
confused by the throng of beauties that enclosed and solicited them on
every side, now expanded and reposed upon the scene before us. The sun
himself seemed liberated, and rejoicing in his emancipation. The valley
indeed "lay smiling before us;" the river, no longer dashing over rock
and struggling with impediments, was flowing brightly and cheerfully
along in the sun, bordered by meadows of the liveliest green, and now
and then embowered in a cluster of trees. One little field of the
freshest verdure swelled forward beyond the rest, round which the river
wound, so as to give it the appearance of an island. In this we
observed a mower whetting his sithe, and the sound was just sufficient
to reach us faintly and at intervals. To the left was the Dargle, where
all the beauties that had so much enchanted us were now one
undistinguishable mass of leaves. Confronting us, stood Sugar-loaf,
with his train of rough and abrupt mountains, remaining dark in the
midst of sunshine, like the frowning guardians of the valley. These
were contrasted with the grand flowing outline of the mountains to our
right, and the exquisite refinement and variety of the light that
spread itself over their gigantic sides. Far to the left, the sea was
again disclosed to our view, and behind us was the Scalp, like the
outlet from Paradise into the wide world of thorns and briers.
From the Cincinnati Mirror.