A Ballad: The Lake of The
Dismal
Thomas Moore
They made her a grave, too
cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by afire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe. |
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B
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And her fire-fly lamp I soon
shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near. |
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Away to the Dismal Swamp he
speeds--
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before. |
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And when on the earth he sunk
to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew! |
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And near him the she-wolf
stirr’d the brake,
And the copper-snake breath‘d in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?" |
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