Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By To a Beautiful Lake

Henry Pickering (1781–1838)

RAPT in a vision of the barbarous past,

I saw upon thy marge a wild-eyed race,

And, startled, heard the yell

That echoed round thy shores!

And now, enchanted with the picture fair,

Which Fancy holds to view, I fain would blend

The murmur of thy waves,

And warblings of my lute.

Translucent flood! within thy ever pure

And stainless breast, the heavens with wonder view

As beautiful a heaven,

As tranquil and serene:

The while, a new creation spreads around—

Hills piled on hills, seem laughing in thy wave,

And groves, inverted, nod

To like majestic groves.

And what if o’er thy brink no frowning cliffs

Impend—no cloud-tipt mountains, as with wall

Insuperable, fence

Thee from the northern blast,—

Yet dost thou scornful mock its utmost force,

And ruffian winter’s rudest breath defy;

Fiercely he sweeps along,

But may not chain thy wave.

And still exulting with the dancing spring,

Thou seest new beauties deck thy soft domain;

And when from summer’s gaze

The earth dejected shrinks,

Thou spread’st thy dazzling bosom to the sun:

While pleased, anon, with Autumn’s rainbow hues

And mournful shell, thou bidd’st

Thy waves wild music make.

In that glad moment, when the star of morn

Leads up the effulgent day, and liquid pearls

Are on the flowers, and thou

In snowy mist art wrapp’d,—

How have I stood, delighted, to behold

The sun, like a young deity look forth,

And, with a glance, thy face

At once again unveil!

And when the golden curtains of the west

Are gathering round his couch, and his last ray

Descending, seems to melt

In thy unruffled flood,—

How have I rivetted my eye on thee,

And wish’d that on my breast a heavenly gleam

Might fall, and thus within

My soul as softly sink!

Yet if there be a more propitious hour,

’T is when the moon from out the silvery east

In chasten’d splendor beams,—

And sheds o’er thee, and o’er

The tranquil earth, her mild and holy light:

A shadowy grandeur then invests the scene,

While through the willing mind

A pleasing sadness steals.

O fond remembrance!—but what boots it now

To sing of absent charms? Thou calmly sleep’st

Beneath thy circling hills,

While I am tempest-tost!

Yet brighter eyes, and innocent as bright,

Shall long upon thy varied beauties gaze,

And young glad beings too

Delight in thee to lave:

And science, haply, on thy banks shall rear

Her proudest domes; and, emulous of fame,

Bards, yet unborn, shall chant

In lofty verse thy praise.