Most people who visit our river, naturally desire a brilliant sunlit day for their journey, and with reason, but there are effects, in fog and rain and driving mist, only surpassed amid the Kyles of Bute, in Scotland.  The traveler is fortunate, who sees the Hudson in many phases, and under various atmospheric conditions.  A midnight view is peculiarly impressive when the mountain spirits of Rodman Drake answer to the call of his “Culprit Fay.”

  “’Tis the middle watch of a summer night,
  The earth is dark but the heavens are bright,
  The moon looks down on Old Cro’ Nest—­
  She mellows the shade on his shaggy breast,
  And seems his huge gray form to throw
  In a silver cone on the wave below.”

It is said that the “Culprit Fay” was written by Drake in three days, and grew out of a discussion which took place during a stroll through this part of the Highlands between Irving, Halleck, Cooper and himself, as to the filling of a new country with old-time legends.  Drake died in 1820.  Halleck’s lines to his memory are among the sweetest in our language.  It is said that Halleck, on hearing Drake read his poem, “The American Flag,” sprang to his feet, and in a semi-poetic transport, concluded the lines with burning words, which Drake afterwards appended: 

  “Forever float that standard sheet,
    Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
  With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet,
    And Freedom’s banner streaming o’er us.”

* * *

  It floweth deep and strong and wide
    This river of romance
  Along whose banks on moonlight nights
    The Highland fairies dance.

  E.  A. Lente.

* * *

Just opposite Old Cro’ Nest is the village of Cold Spring, on the east bank, which receives its name naturally from a cold spring in the vicinity; and it is interesting to remember that the famous Parrott guns were made at this place, and many implements of warfare during our civil strife.  The foundry was started by Gouverneur Kemble in 1828, and brought into wide renown by the inventive genius of Major Parrott.  Cold Spring has a further distinction in having the first ground broken, about three miles from the river, for the greatest engineering enterprise of the age—­“The Water Supply of the Catskills,” when Mayor McClellan, in June, 1907, began the work with his silver shovel.  A short distance north of the village is

=Undercliff= (built by John C. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, but more particularly associated with the memory of the poet, Col.  George P. Morris), lies, in fact, under the cliff and shadow of Mount Taurus, and has a fine outlook upon the river and surrounding mountains.  Standing on the piazza, we see directly in front of us Old Cro’ Nest, and it was here that the poet wrote: 

  “Where Hudson’s wave o’er silvery sands
    Winds through the hills afar,
  Old Cro’ Nest like a monarch stands
    Crowned with a single star.”