Love's Treacherous Pool

A poem by Victor Marie Hugo

("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!