RIDEAU LAKE.

     A warm light permeates the sky,
A silvery mist is lingering nigh,
And floating up the trees near by.

     A slumberous silence fills the air,
Silence upon the Lake, and where

The pines drop pearl from out their hair.

     The birdlings have no voice to sing,
There’s not a bird upon the wing,
Nature, herself, is slumbering.

     Morning half opes her drowsy lid,

Her blue eyes ’neath the lashes hid
The Dawn’s first kiss have gently chid.

     And, Goddess-like, her couch she leaves,
Her golden hair about her weaves—
A Ruth among her autumn sheaves!

     Up glides she through the welcoming skies,
A heaven of beauty in her eyes;
Gladness like light before her flies,

     Cleaving the Twilight with a smile.
Fast speeds she many a golden mile,

Flinging around each purple isle

     Of floating cloud a zone of light,
That widens in swift circles bright,
As the moon silver o’er the night. [Page 78]

     Until in the far-distant heaven

Her milk-white steeds are swiftly driven,
And darkness everywhere is riven

     By the white-bosomed Maid of Day.
Morn puts aside her locks of gray,
On every hand the woods are gay.

     Up leaps the sun’s broad chest of fire,
Up swell the bird hymns—higher—higher,
Phœbus has loosed his forest choir.

     A massive mirror seems the Lake,
A mirror that no force could break,

But which the tricksy zephyrs shake.

     Shy teal of a quadruple hue,
The golden, green, the gray and blue,
Rise like bright fancies on the view.

     The trees are green on either side,

Whole forests standing in their pride,
Steeping their shadows in the tide.

     Islets are floating here and there,
Dreamy and languid, passing fair,
Tinted and limned with Artist-care.

     Reposing like the Thoughts that lie
Within the meditative eye
Of youth—bright thoughts that never die. [Page 79]

     Narcissus-like they stand, and seem
To watch their features in the stream,

Half indistinct, as in a dream.

     Like forms Ideal, lo! they stand,
Huge mounds of airy-seeming land,
Fashioned by the Great Artist-hand.

     Smiling, like children fresh from sleep

Bathing their soft limbs in the deep,
As from their early couch they leap.

     Young, stately cedars, breathing love,
Pines, pointing to the far-above,
Flowers at their feet white as the dove.

     Rocks, red-flushed in the ruddy morn—
Young, Athlétes, browed with manly scorn,
White birches from their bosoms born.

     O’re all, the broad Sun looking down,
O’re all the truant winds have blown,

The wavelets kiss the granite stone.

     Visions of Beauty! Isles of light!
Your sunny verdure glads the sight,
Each living fir-tree seems a sprite.

     The leaves like woodland pulses shake,

The plover whistles in the brake,
Wide Day sits crowned on Rideau Lake. [Page 80]