The Lakeside

The shadows round the inland sea     Are deepening into night;     Slow up the slopes of Ossipee     They chase the lessening light.     Tired of the long days blinding heat,     I rest my languid eye,     Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet,     Thy sunset waters lie!     Along the sky, in wavy lines,     Oer isle and reach and bay,     Green-belted with eternal pines,     The mountains stretch away.     Below, the maple masses sleep     Where shore with water blends,     While midway on the tranquil deep     The evening light descends.     So seemed it when yon hills red crown,     Of old, the Indian trod,     And, through the sunset air, looked down     Upon the Smile of God.     To him of light and shade the laws     No forest skeptic taught;     Their living and eternal Cause     His truer instinct sought.     He saw these mountains in the light     Which now across them shines;     This lake, in summer sunset bright,     Walled round with sombering pines.     God near him seemed; from earth and skies     His loving voice he beard,     As, face to face, in Paradise,     Man stood before the Lord.     Thanks, O our Father! that, like him,     Thy tender love I see,     In radiant hill and woodland dim,     And tinted sunset sea.     For not in mockery dost Thou fill     Our earth with light and grace;     Thou hidst no dark and cruel will     Behind Thy smiling face!