Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | Middle States: Erie, the Lake, N. Y. | | Lake Erie | | Ephraim Peabody (1807–1856) |
| | | THESE lovely shores! how lone and still, | |
| A hundred years ago, | |
| The unbroken forest stood above, | |
| The waters dashed below,— | |
| The waters of a lonely sea, | 5 |
| Where never sail was furled, | |
| Embosomed in a wilderness, | |
| Which was itself a world. | |
| |
| A hundred years! go back, and lo! | |
| Where, closing in the view, | 10 |
| Juts out the shore, with rapid oar | |
| Darts round a frail canoe,— | |
| ’T is a white voyager, and see, | |
| His prow is westward set | |
| O’er the calm wave: Hail to thy bold, | 15 |
| World-seeking barque, Marquette! | |
| |
| The lonely bird, that picks his food | |
| Where rise the waves and sink, | |
| At their strange coming, with shrill scream, | |
| Starts from the sandy brink; | 20 |
| The fishhawk, hanging in mid sky, | |
| Floats o’er on level wing, | |
| And the savage from his covert looks, | |
| With arrow on the string. | |
| |
| A hundred years are past and gone, | 25 |
| And all the rocky coast | |
| Is turreted with shining towns, | |
| An empire’s noble boast; | |
| And the old wilderness is changed | |
| To cultured vale and hill; | 30 |
| And the circuit of its mountains | |
| An empire’s numbers fill! | | | | |
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