A lake
Is a river curled and asleep like a snake.

'T is the brook's motion,
Clear without strife,
Fleeing to ocean
After its life.

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.

It sleeps among the thousand hills Where no man ever trod,
And only nature's music fills The silences of God.

Where shall he find, in foreign land,
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand! — There is no breeze upon the fern,
No ripple on the lake,
Upon her eyry nods the erne,
The deer has sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still,
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud

Let merchants traverse seas and lands,
For silver mines and golden sands;
Whilst I beside some shadowy rill,
Just where its bubbling fountain swells,
Do sit and gather stones and shells,
And hear the tale the blackbird tells.

Body half buried in sand,
still it's lolling its tongue.
Over this invertebrate's head,
pebbles and brine rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, flowing,
flowing,
ah so quietly as a dream flowing.

I am a bird from mountains you don't know.
My throat feels itchy—so I start to chirp
when sings the morning wind among the leaves,
when dreams the moon at midnight in the blue.
Perched on a branch, the bird longs for its brook—
it will break into song and not know why.
Its ditties cannot make the fruits grow ripe;
its carols cannot help the flowers bloom.
It's profitless to sing, and yet the bird
will burst its throat and heart to sing its best.