IN youth's spring it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world 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 —

 

But when the night had thrown her pall

Upon that spot, as upon all,

And the ghastly wind went by

In a dirge-like melody,

Then — ah then I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

 

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight —

A feeling not the jewell'd mine

Could teach or bribe me to define,

Nor love — although the love were thine. [page 325:]

Death was in that poison'd wave,

And in its depth 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.