Poems (Hoffman)/Boat Riding on Blue Lakes

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

BOAT RIDING ON BLUE LAKES, CALIFORNIA

Dip the light oar by the shadowy shore,
 And raise it twined with a dripping wreath
Of trailing mosses, tangled and torn,
Curls from some nymph of the lakeside shorn,
Or {fringes from the mantle worn
By some emerald-robed mermaid reclining there.
O, gladly the sun with his brightest smile
 Bursts forth from his cloudy sheath,
And the blue, blue heavens lie overhead,
 And the blue, blue waters beneath!

The beautiful azure lake unrolled
 Mirrors her fringed brim
The sunbeams quiver in pools of gold,
And the gnarled old trees, and the mountains old,
And the vines that droop o'er the waters cold,
 Are reflected the depths within.
Merrily sing, while the light boat speeds
Away from the shore with its tangled weeds;
Sing! till the hoary hills awake
And the forest trees into music break.
Countless gifts at her hands we take,
Have we no songs for the bonny blue lake?
O, the glorious sun with a smile benign
Has burst from his cloudy sheath,
And the blue, blue heavens above me shine,
 And the blue, blue waters beneath!

Lilies, lilies along the shore,
 They stand in the rushes high,
Lightly they bend to the dripping oar,
Around them the blue, blue waters pour
 And above them the blue, blue sky.

The tremulous sunbeams quiver and dance,
Then pause as if held in a magic trance.
 What care we for aught beside,
 As o'er the beautiful lake we glide?
 Do we sigh for a glimpse of sunny France,
 Could Switzerland's snow-capped mountains stern
 Or Italy's breeze our joy enhance?
 Let the German sing of his castled Rhine,
  And the Scot of his hills of heath,
 When my own blue heavens above me shine,
  And the blue, blue waters beneath.