228 OHIO
HISTORY
LAKE ERIE
Deep, shallow, becalmed, turbulent,
Restless, undulant, constantly nascent,
Shingled by feathers and aerated spray,
Its mobile surface rarely quiescent;
Glacier-born and glacier-scoured,
Time-clock of steady terrestrial action,
Unfolding to eager sensate ears
Nature's story in constant redaction;
Symbol of restless liquidity,
Nursery of storms and tumultuous
roaring,
Playground of sail and fin and man,
Magnet of wing's resistant soaring!
By day its dome uplifted skyward --
At night snatched from darkness by Orion
Or its Undine face bending to the moon,
Mistress in vesture riparian;
The moon's ectoplasm rises out of the
water;
The wind spills waves' spray on aqueous
floor;
Erie, talking a ringing, wild slang,
Annexes the inundated shore.