Explore "The Lake" by Edgar Allan Poe on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In spring of youth 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 towered 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 poisonous 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.