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(Excerpt)
A WARM light permeates the sky, | |
| A silvery mist is lingering nigh, | |
| And floating up the trees near by. | |
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| A slumberous silence fills the air, | |
| Silence upon the lake, and where | 5 |
| The pines drop pearls from out their hair. * * * * * | |
| Up leaps the sun’s broad chest of fire, | |
| Up swell the bird-hymns,—higher,—higher, | |
| Phœbus has loosed his forest choir. | |
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| A massive mirror seems the lake, | 10 |
| A mirror that no force can break, | |
| But which the tricksy zephyrs shake. | |
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| Shy teal of many a gorgeous hue, | |
| The golden-green, the gray, the blue, | |
| Rise like bright fancies on the view. | 15 |
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| The trees are green on either side, | |
| Whole forests standing in their pride, | |
| Rounding their shadows in the tide. | |
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| Islets are floating here and there, | |
| Dreamy and languid, passing fair, | 20 |
| Tinted and limned with artist-care, | |
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| Reposing like the thoughts that lie | |
| Within the meditative eye | |
| Of youth,—bright thoughts that never die. | |
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| Narcissus-like they muse, and seem | 25 |
| To watch their features in the stream, | |
| Half indistinct, as in a dream. | |
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| Like forms ideal, lo, they stand, | |
| Huge mounds of airy-seeming land, | |
| Fashioned by the Great Artist-hand, | 30 |
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| Smiling like children fresh from sleep, | |
| Bathing their soft limbs in the deep, | |
| As from their early couch they leap. | |
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| Young cedars breathing airs of love, | |
| Pines, pointing to the far-above, | 35 |
| Flowers at their feet, white as the dove. | |
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| Rocks red-flushed in the ruddy morn,— | |
| Young Athletes, browed with manly scorn, | |
| White birches from their bosoms born. | |
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| Visions of beauty! Isles of light! | 40 |
| Your sunny verdure glads the sight, | |
| Each living fir-tree seems a sprite. | |
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| Stirred by the breeze, the green leaves wake, | |
| The plover whistles in the brake, | |
| Wide day sits crowned o’er Rideau Lake. | 45 |
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