Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LAKE IN VERMONT, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LAKE IN VERMONT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A lake once lay, where the thunder clouds sail
Last Line: And where the flower smiles is the serpent of death.
Subject(s): Lakes; Vermont; Pools; Ponds


(A few years since, a small lake in a wildly romantic situation in the
northern part of Vermont, was unfortunately drained by the bursting of one
of the banks that confined it. The following stanzas are intended for a
description of that event.)

A LAKE once lay, where the thunder clouds sail,
On the lofty mountain's breast,
Whose ripple, when raised by the rustling gale,
Was so gentle, it seemed at rest;
The pine waved round, and the dark cliff frowned,
Their shadow was gloomy as night;
But when the sun shone, on his noon-day throne,
The lake seemed a mirror of light.
There the red-finned trout like a flash darted by,
And the pickerel moved like the glance of an eye.

When the wind breathed soft at the dawning of day,
When the morning-birds warbled around,
And the rainbow shone on the scarce seen spray,
No lovelier place could be found:
Oh! this scene was as dear to mine eye and mine ear,
As the glance and the song of my love,
And the lake was as bright, and as pure to the sight,
As the bosom of angels above:
The surface flashed with a golden glow,
And a forest of verdure seemed waving below.

The year rolled away, and I saw it no more
Till the spring bloomed sweetly again,
Till the birch first unfolded its leaves on the shore,
And the robin first warbled its strain:
But no lake smiled there, with its bosom fair,
'Twas a dell all with bushes o'ergrown,
From my dream of delight, like a sleeper at night,
I awoke and I found me alone.
Through the vale it had burst with the swiftness of wind,
And left but a path of destruction behind.

The leaves were all dead on the wave-loving willow,
It whispered no more in the wind;
No moonbeam slept on the water's soft pillow,
Or smiled like the tranquillized mind;
The flower-bush there was the foxes lair,
And the whippoorwill sung all alone,
Where the moonbeams pale, glancing through the vale,
Just gleamed on the moss-gray stone.
Where the trout once darted, the adder crept,
And the rattlesnake coiled, where the Naiad wept.

By the moon's chill light, the white pebble shone
On the beach, where the wave once rolled,
And the luster gleamed on the water-worn stone,
But told to the eye it was cold:
No rippling wave that beach shall lave,
No white foam shall toss on that shore,
And the billow's flash, and its scarce heard dash,
Shall be known in that valley no more.
For the wave, shall be heard the serpent's breath,
For the dash of the billow, the hiss of death.

Where the foam once sparkled, the cedar-bush waved,
And the reed rustled sweet in the gale;
And the rock that the water so silently laved
Was hid by the gray lichen's veil;
There the dark fern flings on the night-wind's wings
Its leaves like the dancing feather,
And the whippoorwill's note seemed gently to float
From the deep purple bloom of the heather.
Where the surface glittered, the weed grew wild,
And the flower blossomed sweet, where the wave once smiled.

So when life first dawns on the infant soul,
'T is as pure as the lake's clear wave;
Not a passion is there but can brook control,
Not a thought that is pleasure's slave:
But youth comes on, and this purity's gone,
Fair innocence smiles there no more,
And cold is the guest, that lives in that breast,
As the stone on this desolate shore;
A poison floats in its balmiest breath,
And where the flower smiles is the serpent of death.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net