48
SUMMER ON THE LAKES.
Familiar to the childish mind were tales |
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea, |
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales |
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery. |
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore, |
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er; |
But let him patient climb the frowning wall, |
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall, |
And all that Eden boasted waits his call. |
Almost these tales seem realized to-day, |
When the long dullness of the sultry way, |
Where “independent” settlers' careless cheer |
Made us indeed feel we were “strangers” here, |
Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot, |
On which “improvement” yet has made no blot, |
But Nature all-astonished stands, to find |
Her plan protected by the human mind. |
Blest be the kindly genius of the scene; |
The river, bending in unbroken grace, |
The stately thickets, with their pathways green, |
Fair lonely trees, each in its fittest place. |
Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn ; |
Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn; |
The gentlest breezes here delight to blow, |
And sun and shower and star are emulous to deck the show. |
Wondering, as Crusoe, we survey the land; |
Happier than Crusoe we, a friendly band; |
Blest be the hand that reared this friendly home, |
The heart and mind of him to whom we owe |
Hours of pure peace such as few mortals know; |
May he find such, should he be led to roam; |