Love’s Treacherous Pool
(“Jeune fille, l’amour c’est un miroir.”)
{XXVI., February, 1835.}
Young maiden, true love is a pool all mirroring clear, Where coquettish girls come to linger in long delight, For it banishes afar from the face all the clouds that besmear The soul truly bright; But tempts you to ruffle its surface; drawing your foot To subtilest sinking! and farther and farther the brink That vainly you snatch—for repentance, ’tis weed without root,— And struggling, you sink!