FROM garish light and life apart, Shrined in the woodland's secret heart, With delicate mists of morning furled Fantastic o'er its shadowy world, The lake, a vaporous vision, gleams So vaguely bright, my fancy deems 'Tis but an airy lake of dreams. Dreamlike, in curves of palest gold, The wavering mist-wreaths manifold Part in long rifts, through which I view Gray islets throned in tides as blue As if a piece of heaven withdrawn -- Whence hints of sunrise touch the dawn -- Had brought to earth its sapphire glow, And smiled, a second heaven, below. Dreamlike, in fitful, murmurous sighs, I hear the distant west wind rise, And, down the hollows wandering, break In gurgling ripples on the lake, Round which the vapors, still outspread, Mount wanly widening overhead, Till flushed by morning's primrose-red. Dreamlike, each slow, soft-pulsing surge Hath lapped the calm lake's emerald verge, Sending, where'er its tremors pass Low whisperings through the dew-wet grass; Faint thrills of fairy sound that creep To fall in neighboring nooks asleep, Or melt in rich, low warblings made By some winged Ariel of the glade. With brightening morn the mockbird's lay Grows stronger, mellower; far away 'Mid dusky reeds, which even the noon Lights not, the lonely-hearted loon Makes answer, her shrill music shorn Of half its sadness; day, full-born, Doth rout all sounds and sights forlorn. Ah! still a something strange and rare O'errules this tranquil earth and air, Casting o'er both a glamour known To @3their@1 enchanted realm alone; Whence shines, as 'twere a spirit's face, The sweet coy genius of the place, Yon lake beheld as if in trance, The beauty of whose shy romance I feel -- whatever shores and skies May charm henceforth my wondering eyes, -- Shall rest, undimmed by taint or stain, 'Mid lonely by ways of the brain, There, with its haunting grace, to seem Set in the landscape of a dream. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WOMEN AND ROSES by ROBERT BROWNING CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 52 by PHILIP SIDNEY TANGLED TRAILS by GLADYS NAOMI ARNOLD A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD by MATTHEW ARNOLD HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 12 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH |