Feda with Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The lake lies calm with its mountain crown,
And the twilight star shows clear,
And large and solemn it gazes down
In the mirror of the mere.
Was it here they rowed in their crazy craft,
Where only the ripples are,—
The strange lake-folk of the floating raft?
Was it yesterday? said the star.

And the mountains slept, and the nights fell still,
And the thousand years rolled by.
Was there once a city on yon low hill,
With its towers along the sky,
And the cries of the war-din of long ago
Wailed over the waters far?
There is no stone left for a man to know
Since yesterday, said the star.

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And the mountains sleep and the ripples wake,
And again a thousand years,
And the tents of battle are by the lake,
And the gleam of the Norsemen's spears;
They bend their brows with a fierce surmise
On the lights in the plain afar,
And the battle-hunger is in their eyes.
Was it yesterday? said the star.

And a thousand years,—and the lake is still,
And the star beams large and white,
The burial chant rolls down the hill,
Where they bury the monk at night;
The mountains sleep and the ripples lave
The shore where the pine-woods are,
And there's little change but another grave
Since yesterday, said the star.