Frederick George Scott (1861-1944)
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 repass 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.

Jeg har været på tur i solen og sneen. Himlen var meget blå, den farve gør mig højstemt. Jeg krydsede sporene fra ræv og rådyr. Trods vintervejret sang mejsefuglene deres forårssang.

De dybe hulveje lokkede med deres spændende historiske spor i landskabet. En ny sti fristede mig hele tiden på trods af kulden.

Til sidst måtte jeg vende hjemad, og jeg blev belønnet for min lange vandring, for nu var solen på vej ned.
Fiskehejren fløj hen over vandet imens den anklagende skreg ud i det kolde tusmørke.