  I LOVE the little shoal, the sandy shallow of the lake, Where towers the azure moosehead, glows the crimson Indian pink; Where proudly sails the golden-footed, purple-pinioned drake, And the yellow-throated, gem-eyed frog stares, hours, upon the brink! There the darning-needle crooks among the rushes bristling round, The brassy deer-fly plants its tingling arrow in the skin; The water-soldier’s helmet shines, the eel-grass rich is wound In wavy floss of floating plumes to every stir within. The sunlight, piercing downward, shows the shadows in their play Mottling the amber ooze, and there the water-beetles glance; There twist the gleamy, sunken twigs, the red-fin glistens gay, The spring uptwirls its glittering grains in endless circling dance. And there the moon-white lily spreads her nightly-hiding cup, The sun-hued sister glows upon her pedestal of green; There glides the muskrat’s spotty head, bright air-bells bubble up, And there the little shiner casts its flash of silver sheen. And when the plume moth skims the shoal, the kingly trout comes in With golden bronze and ruby gems and leopard-mantled back; There, rippling, wades the lordly buck, and with wide echoing din Salutes the loon the hunter’s moon along its sparkling track. And ofttimes too there rounds to view, where spreads the grassy park, A reckless crew in birch canoe, with chorus rolling round, To set the camp, to trim the lamp, and, by the margin dark, Float for the deer with eye and ear on every sight and sound. There undulates the water-shield, up points the pennoned grass; The rocking swallow seeks the gnat, the night-hawk rumbles o’er; The water-spider’s globule shoots in silver through the glass And floats the fire-fly’s throbbing torch of gold along the shore. |
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