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| THERE was a broad, still lake near Paradise, | |
| A lake, where silence rested evermore; | |
| And yet not gloomy, for along the shore | |
| Majestic trees and flowers of deepest dyes | |
| Drunk the rich light of those unclouded skies; | 5 |
| But noiseless all. By night the moonshine hoar | |
| And stars in alternating companies; | |
| By day the sun; no other change it wore. | |
| And hither came the sire of men and stood | |
| Breathless amid the breathless solitude. | 10 |
| He plunged; the waters muttered where he fell. | |
| He entered a cavern dim; how wonderful! | |
| High-arched above, and water-paved below. | |
| Pale phosphor cressets with a wavering glow | |
| Lit up the mighty vault. A whisper cool | 15 |
| Ran muttering all around him, and a dull | |
| Sweet sound of music drifted to and fro, | |
| Wordless, yet full of thought unspeakable, | |
| Till all the place was teeming with its flow. | |
| ‘Adam! strong child of light!’ Who calls? who speaks? | 20 |
| What voice, mysterious, the silence breaks. | |
| Is it a vision or reality? | |
| How marble-like her face! How pale her cheeks! | |
| Yet fair, and in her glorious stature high | |
| Above the daughters of mortality. | 25 |
| And this was Lilith. And she came to him, | |
| And looked into him with her dreamy eyes, | |
| Till all his former life seemed old and dim, | |
| A thing that had been once; and Paradise, | |
| Its antique forests, floods, and choral skies, | 30 |
| Now faded quite away; or seemed to skim, | |
| Like eagles on a bright horizon’s rim, | |
| Darkly across his golden phantasies. * * * * * | |
| And he forgot the sunshine and sweet flowers, | |
| And he forgot all pleasant things that be, | 35 |
| The birds of Eden, and the wingèd powers | |
| That visited sometime its privacy; | |
| And what to him was day or day-lit hours, | |
Or the moon shining on an open sea!
Quebec, 1839. | |
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