The Lake

Poem by Charles-Nérée Beauchemin Collection ArrayPeriod 19th century

In the Forest

To Mr. W. Parker.

In the hollow of the damp savannas,
Girdled with grasses and lianas
That teem among the reeds,
Calm, sheltered from the gust,
In the full sun the lake spreads out
The mirror of its clear waters.

Bathing in the shadowy turns
Their cloak of dark green velvet,
Woods with sunlit crowns,
In those depths that deceive us,
So fresh and so soft they fade,
That the eye is filled with wonder.

Let the red twilight come;
The black pool, where nothing stirs,
In the fires of the western sky
Glows; and it is a surprise
To see the shiver of the breeze
Run over this flaming crystal.

Here and there, the dragonflies
With the swift blue flash of their wings
Furrow the tangled reeds.
The trout, between two waters, quivers,
And, to seize the glimmering wing,
Makes a thousand leaps, a thousand dives.

Seated at the bottom of the canoe,
The fisherman, silent, glides
Paddling with quiet sound,
While the pearly bait slips
And rolls, a shimmering propeller,
In the golden wake that flees.

A brass horn sounds still in the distance:
It is the hunter. The sonorous echo
Repeats three times, five times: Tallyho!
Through the mist that veils
Mounts and woods, the first star
Sparkles in the sky like a jewel.

One hears only a soft rustle of leaves.
Solitude gathers itself in silence.
Lulled by an ideal lute,
Ceaselessly and ceaselessly, in cadence,
Around the starry pole dances
The boreal meteor.

Barely a bird’s cry rises
And floats, vague as a dream,
On the keyboard of the deserted waves.
Unfolding its circular flight,
The vaporous polar dawn
Glides in silence through the air.

Soon every rustling falls.
Near the great bright fires of the hollow
Watch hunters and foresters.
Only the tawny moose, who ruminate,
With their companions make their way
In the chiaroscuro of the paths.

Behind a white cloud
Stirred by the slightest breath,
Hiding its pale changing brow,
The moon sleeps: the huntress
On the water that a light wind caresses
Has let fall her silver bow.

Charles-Nérée Beauchemin

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