Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Lake” (Text-06), Missionary Memorial, 1846, pp. 324-325


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[page 324:]

The Lake.

TO ——

BY EDGAR A. 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. [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.


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Notes:

The full title of this book is The Missionary Memorial: A Literary and Religious Souvenir.

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[S:1 - MM, 1846 - RPF] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - The Lake (Text-06)