The Unnamed Lake

It sleeps among the thousand hills
     Where no man ever trod,

And only nature's music fills

      The silences of God.

Great mountains tower above its shore,

      Green rushes fringe its brim,

And o'er its breast for evermore

      The wanton breezes skim.

Dark clouds that intercept the sun

     Go there in spring to weep,

And there, when autumn days are done,

     White mists lie down to sleep.

Sunrise and sunset crown with gold

     The peaks of ageless stone,

Where winds have thundered from of old

     And storms have set their throne.

No echoes of the world afar

     Disturb it night or day,

The sun and shadow, moon and star

     Pass and re pass for aye.

'Twas in the grey of early dawn,

     When first the lake we spied,

And fragments of a cloud were drawn

     Half down the mountain side.

Along the shore a heron flew,

     And from a speck on high,

That hovered in the deepening blue,

     We heard the fish-hawk's cry.

Among the cloud-capt solitudes,

     No sound the silence broke,

Save when, in whispers down the woods,

     The guardian mountains spoke.

Through tangled brush and dewy brake,

     Returning whence we came,

We passed in silence, and the lake

     We left without a name.