Then I came suddenly into still noonday
solitudes, where no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast
meadows of poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread
themselves out a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever.
Then again I journeyed far down away into another country where it was
all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And out of
this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like a
wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of the trees
which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface where they
fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with the
waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows were
continually coming out, and taking the place of their brothers thus
entombed. "This then," I said thoughtfully, "is the very reason why
the waters of this lake grow blacker with age, and more melancholy
as the hours run on." But fancies such as these were not the sole
possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most
appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and
shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of
their possibility.
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