Untracked for ages, save when crouching flew,
Through forest-hung defiles,
The dusky savage in his frail canoe,
To seek the thousand isles,
Or rally to the fragrant cedar's shade
The settler's crafty foe,
With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade
To lay his dwelling low.
Along the far horizon's opal wall
The dark blue summits rise,
And o'er them rifts of misty sunshine fall,
Or golden vapor lies.
And over all tradition's gracious spell
A fond allurement weaves;
Her low refrain the moaning tempest swells,
And thrills the whispering leaves.
To win this virgin land,—a kingly quest,—
Chivalric deeds were wrought;
Long by thy marge and on thy placid breast
The Gaul and Saxon fought.
What cheers of triumph in thy echoes sleep!
What brave blood dyed thy wave!
A grass-grown rampart crowns each rugged steep,
Each isle a hero's grave.
And gallant squadrons manned for border fray,
That rival standards bore,
Sprung from thy woods and on thy bosom lay,—
Stern warders of the shore.
How changed since he whose name thy waters bear,
The silent hills between,
Led by his swarthy guides to conflict there,
Entranced beheld the scene!
Fleets swiftly ply where lagged the lone batteau,
And quarries trench the gorge;
Where waned the council-fire, now steadfast glow
The pharos and the forge.
On Adirondack's lake-encircled crest
Old war-paths mark the soil,
Where idly bivouacks the summer guest,
And peaceful miners toil.