Lake Lyrics and Other Poems

by William Wilfred Campbell

 

THE HEART OF THE LAKES

 
THERE are crags that loom like spectres
    Half under the sun and the mist;
There are beaches that gleam and glisten,
There are ears that open to listen,
    And lips held up to be kissed.
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There are miles and miles of waters
    That throb like a woman’s breast,
With a glad harmonious motion
    Like happiness caught at rest,
As if a heart beat under
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    In love with its own glad rest;
Beating and beating forever,
    Outward to east and to west.

There are forests that kneel forever,
    Robed in the dreamiest haze
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That God sends down in the summer
    To mantle the gold of its days,
Kneeling and leaning forever
    In winding and sinuous bays.

There are birds that like smoke drift over,
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    With a strange and bodeful cry,
Into the dream and the distance
    Of the marshes that southward lie,
With their lonely lagoons and rivers,
    Far under the reeling sky.
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