SUICIDE POND. 'Tis a dark and dismal little pool, and fed by tiny rills, And bosom'd in waveless quietude between two barren hills; There is no tree on its rugged marge, save a willow old and lone, Like a solitary mourner for its sylvan sisters gone.

The plough of the farmer turneth not the sward of its gloomy shore, Which bears even now the same gray moss which in other times it bore; And seldom or never the tread of man is heard in that lonely spot, For with all the dwellers around that pool its story is unforgot. And why does the traveller turn aside from that dark and silent pool, Though the sun be burning above his head, and the willow's shade be cool? Or glance with fear to its shadowy brink, when night rests darkly there, And down, through its sullen and evil depths, the stars of the midnight glare? Merrily whistles the cowboy on— but he hushes his music when hurries his cows, with a sidelong glance, from that cold forsaken glen! Laughing and mirthful the young girl comes, with her gamesome mates, from school, But her laugh is lost and her lip is white as she passes the haunted pool! 'Tis said that a young, a beautiful girl, with a brow and with an eye, — One like a cloud in the moonlight robed, and one like a star on high! — One who was loved by the villagers all, and whose smile was a gift to them, Was found one morn in that pool as cold as the water- lily's stem

Ay, cold as the rank and wasting weeds, which lie in the pool's dark bed, The villagers found that beautiful one, in the slumber of the dead. She had strangely whisper'd her dark design in a young companion's ear, But so wild and vague that the listener smiled and knew not what to fear. And she went to die in that loathsome pool when the summer day was done, With her dark hair curl'd on her pure white brow, and her fairest garments on; With the ring on her taper finger still, and her neck- lace of ocean pearl, Twined as in mockery round the neck of that suicidal girl. And why she perish'd so strangely there no mortal tongue can tell — She told her story to none, and Death retains her secret well! And the willow, whose mossy and aged boughs o'er the silent water lean, Like a sad and sorrowful mourner of the beautiful dead, is seen! But oft, our village maidens say, when the summer evenings fall, When the frog is calling from his pool to the cricket in the wall; When the night-hawk's wing dips lightly down to that dull and sleeping lake, And slow through its green and stagnant mass the shoreward circles break —

At a time like this, a misty form —as fog beneath the moon — Like a meteor glides to the startled view, and vanishes as soon; Vet weareth it ever a human shape, and ever a human cry Comes faintly and Iow on the still night-air, as when the despairing die.

Among the books that Beans chewed last week was a collection of poetry by New England author and abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier. A neatly handwritten dedication is dated 12/25/1902.

One of the unchewed poems, based on a tragic event in Haverhill, MA, caught my eye. #SuicidePond #Whittier