John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Poems of NatureSummer by the Lakeside
W
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep!
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude!
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue,
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies,—the hollow of God’s hand!
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.
I know the voice of wave and pine,
And I am yours, and ye are mine.
I lapse into the glad release
Of Nature’s own exceeding peace.
As falls yon fir-tree’s loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,
A child again, my head I lay
Upon the lap of this sweet day.
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers,
The lake is white with lotus-flowers!
And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
Whose ever-nearing steps appall,
Whose voice we hear behind us call,—
It speaks but what the light waves say,—
Death walks apart from Fear to-day!
Alike on Nature’s love rely;
And equal seems to live or die.
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to His creatures wills,
Will do, whatever that may be,
The best alike for man and tree.
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
Yon mountain’s side is black with night,
While, broad-orbed, o’er its gleaming crown
The moon, slow-rounding into sight,
On the hushed inland sea looks down.
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show
The shadows of their rocky piles,
And tree-tops in the wave below!
Dim-looming through the pale, still light!
The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
They stretch into the solemn night.
Hushed by that presence grand and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket’s wail,
And low response of leaf and wave.
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon
And the young archer, Morn, shall break
His arrows on the mountain pines,
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,
With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.
These waters and these hills than I:
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky;
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,
Shall add, to life’s abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering dear.
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.
One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God’s love.