Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-09-14
Crystal Lake.
WRITTEN FOR THE MONITOR.

WRITTEN FOR THE MONITOR.
Hard by the village, glistening as a queen
And peaceful as realm outspread between
Defensive hills, lies Crystal Lake. in calm,
And storm, indeed, passing rural charm
And waits, with primal beauty still aglow,
Deserving place in poesy to claim;
But sees her lovers come, and mutely go;
Nor leave pastoral tribute to her name.
But hearts were blithe at Picnic Point and beaming
On eyes regaled upon lofty crest,
This sparkling sheet, and gay fotilla steaming,
Evoked song that would not be suppressed.
With this apology these thoughts we bring
From the green repository of the heart,
And bid them like tuneful bird on wing,
Awake to melody some sweeter harp.
The sandy slope, the rugged and sublime
With pendant rocks and trees, the interlace
Ofrush and reeds, are faultless in design,
And duplicate beneath her polished face.
Defantly above her eastern edge,
And grimly Ger the murky waters bending,
The towering mount unveils his hoary ledge
From caverns dark, his deep-toned echoes
sending.
The hill southwest from which this view is taken,
For rattlng car and unmolodious whistle,
Has sold her arboral dress and looks forsaken,
And humbly dons the briar, brake and thistle.
The meagre herds these broken acres picking
Between the rocks their summer daily ration,
Or seeking shade around the stubs upstcking,
Is mans offset for wanton desolation.
No doubt in shame the hill o'erlooks the lake,
And tries to hide beneath his scanty weeds;
Men rob themselves, when natures dress they take
For other uses than essential needs.
However treated, still the scenes are dear
To one acquainted with its haunts and dells,
And careless hands cannot efface the cheer
Where childhood's first association dwells.
Her northward facing is broad expanse,
Where dwelt of yore the old and younger May.
These fertile grounds her lakeship doth enhance;
Where once was bog, now waves the corn and hay.
Quiescenty as sleeps this pensve lake
In times peace she has another form;
Before the irate winds her waters wake,
And lash the shore and supplment the storm.
And when the south wind sweeps in heavy gales,
And lowery skies betoken rainy weather,
Mid break of waves, is heard, like human ails,
The mournfu loon, shy bird of fire and feather.
Dismiss awhile the 'nchantments of this view;
With meditations staff her rocky shores
Survey; with recollections brush renew
The scenes coeval with these hnty scores:
Then know, ere mournful fell OH human ears
This dirge ofwaves, memory's record felt
Her counterpart impressed, through rolling years
Pride of admlring hill, this lakelet dwelt
Who knows the wonders which now concealed
Beneath the waters on her sandy bed?
One mystery, at least, must be revealed
When Crystal lake to God gives up her dead.
Why one ill Iated man never seen,
Since on his way with Martin to their task =
They crossed the lake, that morn calm and serene;
Their mutual friend with them in flask.
The day declined with no unusual sound;
golden sunset honest labor freed
To hear the tale, that Daniel Mann had found
A watery grave. They guessed rum did the deed.
memory! sole regent of the past!
Thy slumbrous realm is wakeful at thy tread;
Touched by the scepter, smouldering relics cast
A glow of life through all the neghborng dead
And in thy quickening presence they awake
To join again in the supreme to-day
The scenes surrounding this sequestered lake
Still live in mind, when art has fled away.
Three generations back the scenes unfold;
There on her bank form almost divine,
With calm, serene, prophetic eye, behold
pale-face reading nature'S grand DESIGN
The laughing lakelet greets him with smile
Her future pinned with his, her power united;
The dusky red-skin stands in awe the while
Before the Spirit Great his soul benighted.
His keen perception sees another day;
A thrifty tswn upon pleasant site;
And those.wild waters redeemed from savage sway,
When wind unlocks these gates of liquid night
The school house, church, and towering block
arise,
The product of the noisy, busy mill,
Whose life and power the neighboring lake sup-
plies,
AS she comes gliding down the Mill street hill.
They followed natures plan, nor tried in vain
To build the town of thrift and enterprise:
They read her book Alright, nor read again;
Oft as the summer days are fair and long,
While Barton's fathers sleep the village nigh,
Let buoyant boat and reverential song
Glide softly Ger the lake, that sleeps hard by.
'Tis pleasant when the day is warm, to ride
Along the lake, and greet each smiling, water
type,
Or in some shady nook to sit beside
Il, @I,o Al;
And farther south, to trace the scallop binding
Of silky sand about the lakelet's head,
And through the merry meadow slowly winding,
The silver stream by which her banks are fed.
A quiet, happy vale to wander DER,
Whose dwellers long this sighted truth have
known;
That happiness consists in little more
Than peace and plenty, where content is sown.
IT'S pleasant gathering here a rare bouquet
Of flowers, emblems of their virtues blending,
And when nights mantle dims the light of day,
To scan the glossy lake, while homeward wend
ing;
And in the covert of the dusky twilight,
The soft, attempered water rudely swim;
Or, in the glimmer of the sparkling starlight,
boating, DER the placid surface skim.
But. ere the day kings golden crown appears,
While Lunar wells in pale obscurity,
His aureole reveals the dome that peers
Above the lake in gray sublimity.
'Tis pleasant, ere the thirsty lips of day
Have slipped the mornings cool and dewy foun
tain,
To be progressing in the rugged way,
That gains the summit of the misty mountain;
And in the cool and shady mountain niche,
Ensconsed awhile before the steep advances,
Refreshments serve, the faithful horses hitch,
To scan the awenspiring circumstances.
The hanging cliffs to scale with careful heed,
On root or twig for progress oft depending,
neither fn
Is not so pleasant for the one suspending.
But soon the labor and the peril ceases.
One more ascent the rock-bare cap is made.
Then wondrously the power of sight increases;
For at glance a county is surveyed.
IT'S pleasant then, from this majestic seating
Each favorite haunt, infinitely to discern =
To hear far down the patter and the beating,
So like fountain playing in an urn;
To watch the glistening wavelets ON their way,
As DER the take they seemingly are vieing
To dash the rocks below with silvery spray
The Insignia of purity, while dying;