ON A LAKE

Sweet in the rushes The reed-singers make A music that hushes The life of the lake; The leaves are dumb, And the tides are still, And no calls come From the flocks on the hill. Forgotten now Are nightingales, And on his bough The linnet fails,— Midway the mere My mirrored boat Shall rest and hear A slenderer note. Though, heart, you measure But one proud rhyme, You build a treasure Confounding time— Sweet in the rushes The reed-singers make A music that hushes The life of the lake.