When I come to the Misty Lake,
With its white ruin on the other shore,
I sit in the grass and close my eyes,
And the white ruin returns for my sake,
Only for a while,
into its former glory:
A splendid manor veiled in fog at sunrise.
Once full of life and happiness,
What now is the house of melancholic ghosts,
Once filled to bursting with people and joy,
Their voices and the whisper of their dancing feet echoing off the pale ceilings,
Now yawning with emptiness,
Sad like old people waiting for the end,
The ghosts shuffling through the empty halls,
Unable to leave the white, crumbling walls,
Watching through the gauzy curtains, fluttering in the morning breeze,
Two swans,
The birds as ghostly white as themselves,
While they dream of the life,
They once lived.
