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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Professor John Wilson (1785–1854)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

III. The Lake in Calm

Professor John Wilson (1785–1854)

IS this the lake, the cradle of the storms,

Where silence never tames the mountain-roar,

Where poets fear their self-created forms,

Or, sunk in trance severe, their God adore?

Is this the lake, forever dark and loud

With wave and tempest, cataract and cloud?

Wondrous, O Nature! is thy sovereign power,

That gives to horror hours of peaceful mirth;

For here might beauty build her summer-bower!

Lo! where yon rainbow spans the smiling earth,

And, clothed in glory, through a silent shower

The mighty sun comes forth, a godlike birth;

While, ’neath his loving eye, the gentle Lake

Lies like a sleeping child too blest to wake!