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| ONE evening in the pleasant month of May, | |
| On a green hillock swelling from the shore | |
| Above thy emerald wave, when the clear west | |
| Was all one sheet of light, I sat me down, | |
| Wearied, yet happy. I had wandered long, | 5 |
| That bright, fair day; and all the way my path | |
| Was tended by a warm and soothing air, | |
| That breathed like bliss; and round me all the woods | |
| Opened their yellow buds, and every cottage | |
| Was bowered in blossoms, for the orchard trees | 10 |
| Were all in flower. I came, at close of day, | |
| Down to thy brink, and it was pleasure there | |
| To bathe my dripping forehead in thy cool, | |
| Transparent waters. I refreshed me long | |
| With the bright sparkling stream, and from the pebbles, | 15 |
| That bedded all thy margin, singled out | |
| Bare casts of unknown shells, from off thy cliffs | |
| Broken by wintry surges. Thou wert calm, | |
| Even as an infant calm, that gentle evening; | |
| And one could hardly dream thou ’dst ever met | 20 |
| And wrestled with the storm. A breath of air, | |
| Felt only in its coolness, from the west | |
| Stole over thee, and stirred thy golden mirror | |
| Into long waves, that only showed themselves | |
| In ripples on thy shore,—far distant ripples, | 25 |
| Breaking the silence with their quiet kisses, | |
| And softly murmuring peace. Up the green hillock | |
| I mounted languidly, and at the summit | |
| On the new grass reposed, and saw that evening | |
Fade sweetly over thee.
Far to the south | 30 |
| Thy slumbering waters floated, one long sheet | |
| Of burnished gold,—between thy nearer shores | |
| Softly embraced, and melting distantly | |
| Into a yellow haze, embosomed low | |
| Mid shadowy hills and misty mountains, all | 35 |
| Covered with showery light, as with a veil | |
| Of airy gauze. Beautiful were thy shores, | |
| And manifold their outlines, here up-swelling | |
| In bossy green,—there hung in slaty cliffs, | |
| Black as if hewn from jet, and overtopped | 40 |
| With the dark cedar’s tufts, or new-leaved birch, | |
| Bright as the wave below. How glassy clear | |
| The far expanse! Beneath it all the sky | |
| Swelled downward, and its fleecy clouds were gay | |
| With all their rainbow fringes, and the trees | 45 |
| And cliffs and grassy knolls were all repeated | |
| Along the uncertain shores,—so clearly seen | |
| Beneath the invisible transparency, | |
| That land and water mingled, and the one | |
| Seemed melting in the other. Oh, how soft | 50 |
| Yon mountain’s heavenly blue, and all o’erlaid | |
| With a pale tint of roses! Deep between | |
| The ever-narrowing lake, just faintly marked | |
| By its reflected light, and farther on | |
| Buried in vapory foam, as if a surf | 55 |
| Heaved on its utmost shore. How deep the silence! | |
| Only the rustling boughs, the broken ripple, | |
| The cricket and the tree-frog, with the tinkle | |
| Of bells in fold and pasture, or a voice | |
| Heard from a distant farm, or hollow bay | 60 |
| Of home-returning hound,—a virgin land | |
| Just rescued from the wilderness, still showing | |
| Wrecks of the giant forest, yet all bright | |
| With a luxuriant culture, springing wheat, | |
| And meadows richly green,—the blessed gift | 65 |
| Of liberty and law. I gazed upon them, | |
| And on the unchanging lake, and felt awhile | |
| Unutterable joy,—I loved my land | |
| With more than filial love,—it was a joy | |
That only spake in tears.
With early dawn | 70 |
| I woke, and found the lake was up before me, | |
| For a fresh, stirring breeze came from the south, | |
| And all its deep-green waves were tossed and mingled | |
| Into a war of foam. The new-risen sun | |
| Shone on them, as if they were worlds of stars, | 75 |
| Or gems, or crystals, or some other thing | |
| Sparry and flashing bright. A gentle murmur, | |
| A roar scarce uttered, like a voice of mirth | |
| Amid the dancing waters, blended well | |
| With the æolian whispering of boughs | 80 |
| In a wide grove of pines. The fields and woods | |
| Were sparkling all with dew, and curling smoke | |
| Rose from the cottage fires;—the robin, too, | |
| And the brown thrush, and other birds concealed | |
| Amid the half-blown thickets, joyously | 85 |
| Poured out their morning songs, and thus attended, | |
| I wandered by the shore. Oh, it was pleasant | |
| To feel the dashing of the dewy spray | |
| Rain on my forehead, and to look between | |
| Long crests of foam, into an unknown depth | 90 |
| Of deepest green, and then to see that green | |
| Soft changing into snow. Over this waste | |
| Of rolling surges, on a lofty bank, | |
| With a broad surf beneath it, brightly shone | |
| White roofs and spires, and gilded vanes, and windows, | 95 |
| Each like a flame,—thy peaceful tenements, | |
| Geneva, aptly named; for not the walls | |
| By the blue, arrowy Rhone, nor Leman’s lake, | |
| With all its vineyard shores and mouldering castles, | |
| Nor even its shaggy mountains, nor above | 100 |
| Its world of Alpine snows,—these are not more | |
| Than thou, bright Seneca, whether at peace, | |
| As I at evening met thee, or this morning, | |
| Tossed into foam. Thou, too, shalt have thy fame: | |
| Genius shall make thy hills his home, and here | 105 |
| Shall build his airy visions,—bards shall come, | |
| And fondly sing thee,—pilgrims too shall haunt | |
| Thy sacred waters, and in after ages, | |
| Oh, may some votary on the hillock sit, | |
| At evening, by thy shore! | 110 |
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