Were silver pink, and had a soul,
Which soul were shy, which shyness might
A visible influence be, and roll
Through heaven and earth — ’twere thou, O light!
O rhapsody of the wraith of red,
O blush but yet in prophecy,
O sun-hint that hath overspread
Sky, marsh, my soul, and yonder sail.
-Sidney Lanier
BLUE, limpid, mighty, restless lakes, God’s mirrors underneath the sky, Low rimmed in woods and mists, where wakes, Through murk and moon, the marsh bird’s cry. Where ever on, through drive and drift,
Neath blue and grey, through hush and moan, Your ceaseless waters ebb and lift, Past shores of century-crumbling stone. And under ever-changing skies, Swell, throb, and break on kindling beach;
Where fires of dawn responsive rise, In answer to your mystic speech. Past lonely haunts of gull and loon, Past solitude of land-locked bays, Whose bosoms rise to meet the moon,
Where fires of dawn responsive rise, In answer to your mystic speech. Past lonely haunts of gull and loon, Past solitude of land-locked bays, Whose bosoms rise to meet the moon,
Beneath their silvered film of haze, Where mists and fogs in ghostly bands, Vague, dim, moon-clothed in spectral light; Drift in from far-off haunted lands, Across the silences of night. __________________ To The Lakes William Wilfred Campbell