"FATHER of lakes!" thy waters bend
Beyond the eagle's
utmost view,
When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send
Back to the sky its world of blue.
Boundless and
deep, the forests weave
Their twilight shade thy borders
o'er,
And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
Their
rugged forms along thy shore.
Pale silence, mid thy
hollow caves,
With listening ear, in sadness broods;
Or startled echo, o'er thy waves,
Sends the hoarse
wolf-notes of thy woods.
Nor can the light canoes,
that glide
Across thy breast like things of air,
Chase
from thy lone and level tide
The spell of stillness
deepening there.
Yet round this waste of wood and
wave,
Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,
That, breathing
o'er each rock and cave,
To all a wild, strange aspect
gives.
The thunder-riven oak, that flings
Its
grisly arms athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image
brings
To the lone traveller's kindled eye.
The
gnarled and braided boughs, that show
Their dim forms in
the forest shade,
Like wrestling serpents seem, and throw
Fantastic horrors through the glade.
The very echoes
round this shore
Have caught a strange and gibbering
tone;
For they have told the war-whoop o'er,
Till the
wild chorus is their own.
Wave of the wilderness,
adieu!
Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds, ye woods!
Roll on,
thou element of blue,
And fill these awful solitudes!
Thou hast no tale to tell of man;
God is thy theme.
Ye sounding caves,
Whisper of him whose mighty plan
Deems as a bubble all your waves! |
