Poetry Break

I love poetry.  I do dabble in writing poetry myself but will rarely share because I'm not very good!  My favorite poetry is typically from the 16th to the 19th centuries.  In high school I used to sit in the library during breaks and lunch and read poetry.  How sad is that?  At the time it seemed sad, but it certainly gave me a solid knowledge of past poets and how they lived and died.  Poetry was, and is, my church.  Edgar Allan Poe is my all time favorite.  His use of alliteration astounds me.

TO 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 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.

Edgar Allan Poe