Page:Poems Rice.djvu/41

With her plumes and her wampum, and dark raven hair,
So fitfully singing some wild pensive air:
Alas for their sires, they shall never build more
A canoe or a home on this beautiful shore;
And dark is the tale of their wrongs and their woes
As they fled from the banks of this Lake of Melrose.

The camp-fire once blazed on yon gray, craggy height,
And threw forth the glare of its magical light;
And the eagle-eyed Indian there counted his game,
And 'reigned in the wilds till the pale-faces came.
But here would I linger midst trees, birds, and flowers,
To soothe all my cares and beguile my sad hours,
And sit by the banks where the bright water flows,
And share in the charms of the Lake of Melrose.

How suggestive the scene where the soft shadows fall,
Of the maple and willow; how sweet to recall
That Lord's own day when an ambassador led
The lambs of his fold whom the Saviour had fed:
There I caught the rich strains of the baptismal rhyme
By the multitude sung on that bank; how sublime,
How thrilling, how pure, O, how dear till life's close,
And sacred, the charms of the Lake of Melrose.