You may sing of your silvery seas by night
When the moon looks down with a dreamy light;
And the stars shine out in the skies above
Like the warm sweet gaze of the eyes of love;
But the glow on the lake to-day
Is a glory that never will fade away.
The beautiful lake is a sea of gold
And the beauty it wears will never grow old;
The trees bend down in the sun's warm glow
Till their branches meet in the waves below,
And the clouds in the far-off skies
Are mirrored anew where the sunlight lies.
I love to float where the shadows lie
'Neath the matchless glow of the summer sky;
And I love to dream that these waves of light
Will never fade in the gloomy night:
But I know that the things I love
Are as far from my reach as the clouds above.
Oh, the beautiful lake is a sea of gold
And the beauty it wears will never grow old;
The cloudlets of Heaven are mirrored there
In a golden splendor so bright and fair
That the soul is dazzled for aye
By the beautiful light of this summer's day.
Oh, I love to dream when this life is o'er
We shall moor our boats near the golden shore;
And our sorrows shall drift from us far away
As the leaves that float in their idle play,
And the waves shall smile in the sun
When the night is over and life is done.
Beyond.
Beyond yon dim old mountain's shadowy height,
The restless sun droops low his grand old face;
While downward sweeps the trembling veil of night,
To hide the earth; the frost king's filmy lace
Rests on the mountain's hoary snow-crowned head,
And adds to it a softened grace; the light
Which dies afar in faint and fading red
In purple shadows circles near.
The flight
Of birds across the vast and silent plains
Awakes the echoes of the sleeping earth;
Of all the summer beauty naught remains,
There come no tidings of the spring's glad birth.
Beyond the valley and far-off height
The birds in wandering do take their way;
Ah, whither is their strange and trackless flight
Amid the dying embers of the day;
Into the clouds that seek to veil the sun
They seem to float on strange bright wings of fire;
Beyond the shades that tell us day is done
They soar on spirit wings that never tire.
Ah, strange, strange mysteries indeed are these;
To watch the sunlight fade and die away,
To hear the whispering of the dark pine trees,
To see the deepening shadows 'round us play,
And then to feel that all that 'round us lies
Is e'en beyond the knowledge of the soul.
We seek to grasp the truth, it quickly flies
And leaves us full of doubt.