From Poems on Lake Winnipesaukee.

 The Three-Fold Blue.

The blue above the clouds so calmly sailing

Is crystalline as on a morn of May :

Long have our eyes looked heavenward, unavailing

To see such pure cerulean deck the day

Hail hyaline, thy wind-swept dome of azure

Shines on unnumbered eyes upturned to thee !

Art thou the realm of Summer's latest pleasure

Or of the advancing Autumn, bold and free !

Thou sea-bine lake, a dream of fair September

Mingles thy flood with amethystine dye,

Deepening the softer hues, that we remember

Imperial Juno gave, when, wandering by,

She spread her vail of hyacinthine splendor

Over the sky, the lake and mountain-steep,

Hues like the hill-side violet, soft and tender

As infant's eyes when they awake from sleep.

Thou gem-blue mountains, where the shadows ranging,

Chased by the gales of high, ethereal-air 

Make pictures of the clouds, forever changing, 

Like Nature's soul that shines forever there!

So ever varying is the land of vision,

When dreams half-picture, in the star-lit night

The sapphire-fountains and the bowers elysian

Of kingdoms fading in the morning light.

pp. 16-17

Night, Hastening from the Lake.

    Was it the soul of night

    That charmed my rapturous sight,

Or coming morn, entranced, beyond the wave!

    The crescent moon shone clear

    The ethereal atmosphere

Was pure with breezes that September gave.

    Orion led the band

    That lit the shadowy land;

The royal planets shone on golden throne,

    And all the adoring stars

    Illumed their crystal bars,

Till darkness fled and splendor reigned alone.

    The auroral, boreal arch

    Shone as in skies of March,

That southern skies might shadow back the gleams,

    Vicing with Dian clear

    And diamond-dawning, near,

And twilight suns o'er Scandinavian streams.

    I saw the mountain-lake

    The living picture take,

Till glowed the heavens with light, translucent clear,

    That no man's hand may trace,

    Imperial halls to grace, 

As earth's grand dream till opening heaven draws near.

pp. 19-20

Sunset Splendors.

    Whence those colors golden

        On the sunset wave,

    Blending with the olden

        Hues, that seraphs' gave

To Raphael's soul sublime, and Angelo the brave!

    When on Patmos Island,

        He, whose love is sung,

    Saw a heavenly highland,

        O'er whose height was flung

Hues that arose to light when vaporous worlds were young,

    All the jewelled splendor,

        Every sunlit gem, 

    Shone with a radiance tender

        In the pure pearl diadem 

Of her, the bride of Him, who rules Jerusalem.

    Now that lustre shining

        Lights the earthly stream,

    Man is half divining

        How the diamonds gleam

On those far, fadeless shores, that haunt the poet's dream.

    And perchance the angels,

        All our longings learning,

    Blessed love evangels,

        Answering our deep yearning,

Unclose the twelve pearl-gates to light us, home returning.

pp. 30-31

~ Stickney, Julia Noyes, Poems on lake Winnipesaukee, published in 1884.