CONISTON WATER
Your calm and placid sheet of blue water
surprised me today.
I have never seen you smile.
Always in the past,
dark, forbidding, deep, inviting death.
Your mountain protective, oppressive,
guarding you.
You do not fool me with your transient beauty.
Others may accept this long tree-fringed lake
on a peaceful day.
For me, your waters will always be
the resting place
of my youth's dreaming hero,
the one who scared, dared,
chanced his life's dream
for world acclaim
and lost.
