Lyric Poem · Love
The Lake
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 the 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.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Lake” by Edgar Allan Poe — quilloak.com/poems/the-lake
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Lake
- Poet
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Length
- 23 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Death & Loss, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 23 lines · 4 stanzas of 5–6 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849
- Source record
- PoetryDBThe Lake by edgar-allan-poe, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 d176f32f3e002e4f…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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