Personal Poems, Complete

KENOZA LAKE.

This beautiful lake in East Haverhill was the "Great Pond" the writer's boyhood. In 1859 a movement was made for improving its shores as a public park. At the opening of the park, August 31, 1859, the poem which gave it the name of Kenoza (in Indian language signifying Pickerel) was read.

     As Adam did in Paradise,
     To-day the primal right we claim
     Fair mirror of the woods and skies,
     We give to thee a name.

     Lake of the pickerel!—let no more
     The echoes answer back, "Great Pond,"
     But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore
     And watching hills beyond,

     Let Indian ghosts, if such there be
     Who ply unseen their shadowy lines,
     Call back the ancient name to thee,
     As with the voice of pines.

     The shores we trod as barefoot boys,
     The nutted woods we wandered through,
     To friendship, love, and social joys
     We consecrate anew.

     Here shall the tender song be sung,
     And memory's dirges soft and low,
     And wit shall sparkle on the tongue,
     And mirth shall overflow,

     Harmless as summer lightning plays
     From a low, hidden cloud by night,
     A light to set the hills ablaze,
     But not a bolt to smite.

     In sunny South and prairied West
     Are exiled hearts remembering still,
     As bees their hive, as birds their nest,
     The homes of Haverhill.

     They join us in our rites to-day;
     And, listening, we may hear, erelong,
     From inland lake and ocean bay,
     The echoes of our song.

     Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake
     Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail,—
     No fairer face than thine shall take
     The sunset's golden veil.

     Long be it ere the tide of trade
     Shall break with harsh-resounding din
     The quiet of thy banks of shade,
     And hills that fold thee in.

     Still let thy woodlands hide the hare,
     The shy loon sound his trumpet-note,
     Wing-weary from his fields of air,
     The wild-goose on thee float.

     Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir,
     Thy beauty our deforming strife;
     Thy woods and waters minister
     The healing of their life.

     And sinless Mirth, from care released,
     Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky,
     Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast
     The Master's loving eye.

     And when the summer day grows dim,
     And light mists walk thy mimic sea,
     Revive in us the thought of Him
     Who walked on Galilee!