I look'd again, and saw an isle
Of amber on the blue:
So changed the cloudlet by the smile
That softly lit it through.
Another look: the isle was gone—
As though dissolv'd away.
And could it be, so warmly shone
That chaste and tender ray?
I said: "O star, the faith art thou
That brought my life its Queen—
In her sweet light no longer now
The vapor it has been.
"Shine on, my Queen: and so possess
My being to its core,
That self may show from less to less—
Thy love from more to more."
A touch of the oars, and on we slid—
My cedar boat and I.
The dreaming water faintly chid
Our rudeness with a sigh.
Lake George, September, 1873.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Ps. xxxv.