VOICE
OF THE LANDSCAPE
A Palimpsest of Time and Place
Thomas Cole
Painter, Poet, Prophet
Earth Elegies III
Work-in-Progress
Contemporaries
Catterskill Falls
Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps
With the sweet light spray of the mountain-springs,
And he shakes the woods on the mountain-side,
When they drip with the rains of the aumtumn-tide.But when, in the forest bare and old,
The blast of December calls,
He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,
A palace of ice where his torrent falls,
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,
And pillars blue as the summer air.WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
But when in the forest bare and old,
The blast of December calls-
He builds in the starlight, clear and cold,
A palace of ice where his torrent falls;
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,
And pillars blue as the summer air.
With the dying voice of the waterfall.
Thanatopsis
1817
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Natures Teachings
Earth That Nourished Thee
Rip Van Winkle
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains.
They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the West of the river,
swelling up to a noble height and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season,
every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some changes in the magic hues
and shapes of these mountains...When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple,
and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless,
they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun,
will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
Walt Whitman
The Voice Of The Rain
1888
Thomas Cole's 1827 Sketchbook
A Look Inside
Writings of his Contemporaries
William Cullen Bryant
Washington Irving
SoundScape
Audio Clips
