Now there were boary and time-honored forests, and
craggy precipices, and waterfalls tumbling with a loud
noise into abysses without a bottom. Then I came suddenly
into still noonday solitudes, where no wind of heaven ever
intruded, and where vast meadows of poppies, and slender,
lily-looking flowers spread themselves out a weary
distance, all silent and motionless forever. Then again I
journeyed far down away into another country where it was
all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of
clouds. And out of this melancholy water arose a forest of
tall eastern trees, like a wilderness of dreams. And I
have in mind that the shadows of the trees which fell upon
the lake remained not on the surface where they fell, but
sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with the
waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows
were continually coming out, and taking the place of their
brothers thus entombed. “This then,” I said thoughtfully,
“is the very reason why the waters of this lake grow
blacker with age, and more melancholy as the hours run
on.”