by Edgar Allan Poe
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.
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.
-The End-
