Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Middle States: Wyalusing, the Lake, Pa.

Lake Wyalusing

By William Henry Cuyler Hosmer (1814–1877)

JOY like a wave o’erflowed my soul,

While looking on its basin round,

That fancy named a sparkling bowl

By hoop of fadeless emerald bound,

From which boon Nature’s holy hand

Baptized the nymphs of mountain land.

It blushes in the morning’s glow,

And glitters in the sunset ray,

When brooks that run far, far below

Have murmured out farewell to day;

The moonlight on its placid breast,

When dark the valley, loves to rest.

Wheeling in circles overhead,

The feathered king a war-scream gave;

His form, with pinion wide outspread,

Was traced so clearly on the wave,

That seemingly its glass was stirred

By flappings of the gallant bird.

Not far away were rocky shelves

With the soft moss of ages lined,

And seated there a row of elves

By moonlight would the poet find:

Fairies, from slumber in the shade

Waking with soft-voiced serenade.

The waters slept, by wind uncurled,

Encircled by a zone of green:

The reflex of some purer world

Within their radiant blue was seen,—

I felt, while musing on the shore,

As if strong wings my soul upbore.

Lake, flashing in the mountain’s crown!

Thought pictures thee some diamond bright,—

That dawn had welcomed,—fallen down

From the starred canopy of night;

Or chrysolite, by thunder rent

From Heaven’s eternal battlement.