Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT WINNIPESAUKEE, by LUCY LARCOM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT WINNIPESAUKEE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O silent hills across the lake
Last Line: To kiss of lisping ripples lean.
Subject(s): Winnipesaukee (lake), New Hampshire


O SILENT hills across the lake,
Asleep in moonlight, or awake
To catch the color of the sky,
That sifts through every cloud swept by, --
How beautiful ye are, in change
Of sultry haze and storm-light strange;
How dream-like rest ye on the bar
That parts the billow from the star;
How blend your mists with waters clear,
Till earth floats off, and heaven seems near.

Ye faint and fade, a pearly zone,
The coast-line of a land unknown.
Yet that is sunburnt Ossipee,
Plunged knee-deep in the limpid sea:
Somewhere among these grouping isles,
Old White-Face from his cloud-cap smiles,
And gray Chocorua bends his crown,
To look on happy hamlets down;
And every pass and mountain-slope
Leads out and on some human hope.

Here the great hollows of the hills
The glamour of the June day fills.
Along the climbing path the brier,
In rose-bloom beauty beckoning higher,
Breathes sweetly the warm uplands over
And, gay with buttercups and clover,
The slopes of meadowy freshness make
A green foil to the sparkling lake.

So is it with you hills that swim
Upon the horizon, blue and dim:
For all the summer is not ours;
On other shores familiar flowers
Find blossoming as fresh as these,
In shade and shine and eddying breeze;
And scented slopes as cool and green,
To kiss of lisping ripples lean.





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