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.