Superior! wondrous lake! compared with thee,
What tiny lakelets doth earth’s face disclose!
Thy bright blue waters never know repose,
But, sea-like, fret, foam, rage continually—
High “pictured rocks” still battlement thy shore,
Around thee woods their sombre shadows cast,
Where Red-man pitched his wigwam in time past,
Or danced his war-dance to the music of thy roar—
Now on thy surface no canoe is seen,
For ’mid the wild-flowers which anigh thee bloom,
Sleeps the bold Indian, death-cold in his tomb;
Remembered as the things that once had been,
While wild-birds o’er him do his requiem sing,
Or flying o’er thee dip their sparkling wing.
* * * * *