HUGO'S “POOL IN THE FOREST”

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.