LAKE GEORGE.

Where cedars taper, there's a lake beyond;

Once visioned from the hill, it beckons me;

Soft-hazed with heat's grey, slumbrous canopy,

Or bright with glittering dust of diamond,

Or calmed when waning day wafts glances fond,

Or freighted with the moon's pale poesy,

Or blown till sobbing wavelets plash the lea,

Or sunk in starless night like fabled pond.

Whate'er thy mood, O dream-kissed, mountain lake;

It lingers still, my inmost self replies;

But where's the song that plumbs the depth of thought?

The lyre has lost its strings, the words forsake.

What Art's so high; but Nature far outvies?

In silent wonderment, God's voice is caught.