AT RAINBOW LAKE.

There is a spot, far from the world's uproar,

Amid great mountains,

Where softly sleeps a lake, to whose still shore

Steal silvery fountains,

That hide beneath the leafy underwood,

And blend their voices with the solitude.

Save where the beaver-meadow's olive sheen

In sunlight glimmers,

On every side, a mass of waving green,

The forest shimmers

And oft re-echoes with the black bear's tread,

That silences the song birds overhead.

Here thickly droops the moss from patriarch trees,

And loons fly wailing.

Here king-birds’ screams come hoarsely down the breeze

And hawks are sailing

Above the trees. Here Nature dwells alone,

Of man unknowing, and to man unknown.

Smiling, she rises when the morning air,

The dawn just breaking,

Bids the still woodlands for the day prepare,

And Life, awaking,

Welcomes the Sun, whose bride, the Morn, is kissed

And, blushing, lays aside her veil of mist.

Here Nature with each passing hour reveals

Peculiar graces:

At noonday she grows languid, and then steals

To shady places,

And revels in their coolness, at her feet

A stream, that fills with music her retreat.

At eve she comes, and, blushing like a maid,

Unrobes in shadows,

Bathes in the lake, and wanders through the glade

And o'er the meadows.

From her dank locks, wherever she doth pass,

The diamond dew-drops dripping to the grass.

And then she sleeps; when o'er the lake's calm tide

The Moon comes stealing,

And draws from her the veil of night aside,

Her charms revealing,

While silent stars keep ceaseless watch above,

And all the earth breathes peace and rest and love.