In youth's spring it was my lot

To haunt, of the wide earth a spot

The which I could not love the less,

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that tower'd around. [back:]

 

But, when the night had thrown her pall

Upon that spot, as upon all,

And the wind would pass me by

In a stilly melody,

My boyish spirit would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

 

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight,

And a feeling undefined

Springing from a darken'd mind.

 

Death was in that poison'd wave —

And, in its gulf, a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining,

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.