The Lake by Edgar Allan Poe

The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe – 1809-1849

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. 

But, when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in 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 jewelled 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 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.

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