by Owen O. Ryan (uncredited)
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.16 #280 (04 Jul 1857).
It lies in deepest forest gloom,
Where huge trees push the sun away,
And tall weeds catch each struggling beam
That through the branches peers its way.
It sleeps in bed of flinty rocks
Whose shatter'd foreheads shrink from light,
And scowl from out their dusky home
With frown that makes a blacker night.
It dwells encinctured from the view,
And stamp'd as with a brand of doom,
As hated as a spot accursed
And shunn'd as is a plague-fill'd tomb.
It seems a haunt where Horror sits,
And fixes deep her ebon rule;
And men have named it, passing by
With bated breath, The Dismal Pool.
A wondrous sorrow seems to rest
Upon the almost stirless trees;
And listless as the eye of death
The livid lake looks up to these.
And never at the morning's birth
The sweet lark soars this lake above;
Nor children come with matin glee
To read their mirror'd smiles of love.
And never in the sunny noon
The small flies skim its leaden breast;
Nor ever 'mid those death-bound leaves
The woodguest hums herself to rest.
And nowhere through the lanky grass
Beams out the violet's tender eye;
Nor lily pale upon the bank
Bends down to see its beauty die.
But all is rough, and all is still,
And all is night that dimmeth day,
And all is Upas deathfulness,
That saps the spirit's life away.
Oh, why, when all the earth is glad,
And every lake is fringed with bloom,
Hast thou been chosen, Dismal Pool,
To be the only home of gloom?
'Tis surely from some primal curse
Thou liest thus so deep away;
Unvisited of moon by night,
Unvisited of sun by day.
Or are thy waters human tears
That flow in secret evermore?
And are those traces human steps
That, like mine own, have press'd thy shore?
But wherefore have I hither come?
And wherefore am I tarrying still
Where loathsome things of fear and doubt
Sink on my heart their pinious chill?
Already droops my soul of Youth
Within this deadly atmosphere;
And o'er the morning's hills of gold
Are clinging shadows dense and drear.
Fast fades the past, where life was peace;
Dim grow the future's gates of bliss;
Ah! luckless one, if all thy days
Shall be a present like to this!
O, burial-place of every love!
Dread catacomb of faith and joy!
Come, Hope, to lead me from this spot,
Thou wast my angel when a boy!