and went their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the
Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human
countenance, but could not remember where.

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet
had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered
by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had come down
from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the
eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast,
or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. If his theme
were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to
gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea, even the deep
immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by
the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better
aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The
Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork.
Creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so
complete it.

The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were
the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust
of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in
it, were glorified if they beheld him in his mood of poetic faith. He
showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an