the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave 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