Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838/The Abbey, near Mussooree
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THE ABBEY AND HILLS FROM NEAR MUSSOOREE.
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THE ABBEY, NEAR MUSSOOREE.
THE SEAT OF J. C. GLEN, ESQ.
"On the brow of a rugged mountain, it is quite isolated from any other dwelling; and during the rainy season, when dense clouds are floating about, it has the appearance of an island in a sea of vapour."
Alone, alone, on the mountain brow,
The sky above, the earth below;
Your comrades the clouds with the driving rain
Bathing your roof ere it reach the plain.
Loud on its way as a forest blast,
The eagle that dwells at your side sweeps past;
Dark are its wings, and fierce its eye,
And its shadow falls o’er you in passing by.
White with the snow of a thousand years,
Tall in the distance the Chor appears;
Hot though the sunshine kindle the air.
Still hath the winter a palace there.
Away to the south the Jumna takes
Its way through the melons’ golden brakes,
Through gardens, cities, and crowded plains—
Little, methinks, on its course it gains.
Round are the woods of the ancient oak,
And pines that scorn at the woodman’s stroke;
And yet the axe is on its way,
Those stately trees in the dust to lay.
They have opened the quarries of lime and stone;
There is nothing that man will leave alone:
He buildeth the house—he tilleth the soil;
No place is free from care and toil.
Ye old and ye stately solitudes,
Where the white snow lies, and the eagle broods,
Where every sound but the wind was still;
Or the voice of the torrent adown the hill.
Wo on our wretched and busy race,
That will not leave Nature a resting-place.
We roam over earth, we sail o’er the wave,
Till there is not a quiet spot but the grave.
Some idea of the precipitousness of the Landour and Mussooree ridges may be conceived from the following fact, witnessed by Lieut. G. F. White. A gentleman riding in the upper Landour road, was, by the sudden starting of his mule, precipitated, along with the animal, over the side of the hill: the traveller happening to lodge in a tree, fortunately escaped with little injury; but the poor mule, after a few tremendous bounds, was lost sight of, and subsequently found, much mangled, more than a mile distant from the spot where the accident occurred.