Menotomy Lake (Spy Pond)
by John Townsend Trowbridge�(1827�1916) |
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HERE 's nothing so sweet as a morning in May,
And few
things so fair as the gleam of glad water;
Spring leaps
from the brow of old Winter to-day,
Full-formed, like the
fabled Olympian's daughter.
A breath out of heaven
came down in the night,
Dispelling the gloom of the
sullen northeasters;
The air is all balm, and the lake is
as bright
As some bird in brave plumage that ripples and
glisters.
The enchantment is broken which bound her
so long,
And Beauty, that slumbered, awakes and
remembers;
Love bursts into being, joy breaks into song,
In a glory of blossoms life flames from its embers.
I
row by steep woodlands, I rest on my oars
Under banks
deep-embroidered with grass and young clover;
Far round,
in and out, wind the beautiful shores,�
The lake in the
midst, with the blue heavens over.
The world in its
mirror hangs dreamily bright;
The patriarch clouds in
curled raiment, that lazily
Lift their bare foreheads in
dazzling white light,
In that deep under-sky glimmer
softly and hazily.
Far over the trees, or in glimpses
between,
Peer the steeples and half-hidden roofs of the
village.
Here lie the broad slopes in their loveliest
green;
There, crested with orchards or checkered with
tillage.
There the pines, tall and black, in the blue
morning air;
The warehouse of ice, a vast windowless
castle;
The ash and the sycamore, shadeless and bare;
The elm-boughs in blossom, the willows in tassel.
In
golden effulgence of leafage and blooms,
Far along,
overleaning, the sunshiny willows
Advance like a surge
from the grove's deeper glooms,�
The first breaking swell
of the summer's green billows.
Scarce a tint upon
hornbeam or sumach appears,
The arrowhead tarries, the
lily still lingers;
But the cat-tails are piercing the
wave with their spears,
And the fern is unfolding its
infantile fingers.
Down through the dark evergreens
slants the mild light:
I know every cove, every moist
indentation,
Where mosses and violets ever invite
To
some still unexperienced, fresh exploration.
The
mud-turtle, sunning his shield on a log,
Slides off with
a splash as my paddle approaches;
Beside the green island
I silence the frog,
In warm, sunny shallows I startle the
roaches.
I glide under branches where rank above rank
From the lake grow the trees, bending over its bosom;
Or
lie in my boat on some flower-starred bank,
And drink in
delight from each bird-song and blossom.
Above me the
robins are building their nest;
The finches are
here,�singing throats by the dozen;
The catbird,
complaining, or mocking the rest;
The wing-spotted
blackbird, sweet bobolink's cousin.
With rapture I
watch, as I loiter beneath,
The small silken tufts on the
boughs of the beeches,
Each leaf-cluster parting its
delicate sheath,
As it gropingly, yearningly opens and
reaches;
Like soft-wing�d things coming forth from
their shrouds.
The bees have forsaken the maples' red
flowers
And gone to the willows, whose luminous clouds
Drop incense and gold in impalpable showers.
The
bee-peopled odorous boughs overhead,
With fragrance and
murmur the senses delighting;
The lake-side, gold-laced
with the pollen they shed
At the touch of a breeze or a
small bird alighting;
The myriad tremulous pendants
that stream
From the hair of the birches,�O group of slim
graces,
That see in the water your silver limbs gleam,
And lean undismayed over infinite spaces!�
The bold
dandelions embossing the grass;
On upland and terrace the
fruit-gardens blooming;
The wavering, winged, happy
creatures that pass,�
White butterflies flitting, and
bumblebees booming;
The crowing of cocks and the
bellow of kine;
Light, color, and all the delirious
lyrical
Bursts of bird-voices; life filled with new
wine,�
Every motion and change in this beautiful miracle,
Springtime and Maytime,�revive in my heart
All the
springs of my youth, with their sweetness and splendor:
O
years, that so softly take wing and depart!
O perfume! O
memories pensive and tender! |
By John Townsend Trowbridge�(1827�1916)
Listed April 23, 2014 |
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