Hugo's "pool in the forest" by Eugene Field
How calm, how beauteous and how cool-- How like a sister to the skies, Appears the broad, transparent pool That in this quiet forest lies. The sunshine ripples on its face, And from the world around, above, It hath caught down the nameless grace Of such reflections as we love.
But deep below its surface crawl The reptile horrors of the night-- The dragons, lizards, serpents--all The hideous brood that hate the light; Through poison fern and slimy weed And under ragged, jagged stones They scuttle, or, in ghoulish greed, They lap a dead man's bleaching bones.
And as, O pool, thou dost cajole With seemings that beguile us well, So doeth many a human soul That teemeth with the lusts of hell.
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