The Complete Collection of Poems 
by Edgar Allan Poe



Edgar
Allan Poe

January
19, 1809, October 7, 1849



Al
Aaraaf
Alone
Annabel Lee
The Bells
Bridal Ballad
The City in the Sea
The Coliseum
"The Conqueror Worm" From Ligeia
A Dream
Dreamland
Dreams
Dream Within a Dream
Eldorado
Elizabeth
An Enigma
Eulalie
Evening Star
Fairyland
For Annie
"The Happiest Day"
The Haunted Palace
Hymn
Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius
Imitation
"In Youth I Have Known One"
Israfel
"In the Greenest of Our Valleys"From The
Fall of the House of Usher
The Lake
Lenore
The Raven
Romance
"Sancta Maria!"From Morella
Serenade
Silence
The Sleeper
Sonnet - To Science
Song
Spirits of the Dead
Stanzas
Tamerlane
To ...
To ...
To ...
To F...
To F...s. S. O...d
To M...
To Marie Louise (Shew)
To M. L. S.
To my Mother
To Helen
To
One in Paradise
To the River
To Zante
Ulalume
A Valentine
The Valley of Unrest




Al Araaf



PART
I

 O! nothing earthly save the ray
 (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
 As in those gardens where the day
 Springs from the gems of Circassy-
 O! nothing earthly save the thrill
 Of melody in woodland rill-
 Or (music of the passion-hearted)
 Joy's voice so peacefully departed
 That like the murmur in the shell,
 Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
 Oh, nothing of the dross of ours-
 Yet all the beauty- all the flowers
 That list our Love, and deck our bowers-
 Adorn yon world afar, afar-
 The wandering star.

 'Twas a sweet time for Nesace- for there
 Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
 Near four bright suns- a temporary rest-
 An oasis in desert of the blest.
 Away- away- 'mid seas of rays that roll
 Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul-
 The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
 Can struggle to its destin'd eminence,-
 To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode
 And late to ours, the favor'd one of God-
 But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
 She throws aside the sceptre- leaves the helm,
 And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
 Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

 Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
 Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,
 (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
 Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
 It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
 She looked into Infinity- and knelt.
 Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled-
 Fit emblems of the model of her world-
 Seen but in beauty- not impeding sight
 Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-
 A wreath that twined each starry form around,
 And all the opal'd air in color bound.

 All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
 Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head
 On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
 So eagerly around about to hang
 Upon the flying footsteps of- deep pride-
 Of her who lov'd a mortal- and so died.
 The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
 Upreared its purple stem around her knees:-
 And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd-
 Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
 All other loveliness:- its honied dew
 (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
 Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
 And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
 In Trebizond- and on a sunny flower
 So like its own above that, to this hour,
 It still remaineth, torturing the bee
 With madness, and unwonted reverie:
 In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
 And blossom of the fairy plant in grief
 Disconsolate linger- grief that hangs her head,
 Repenting follies that full long have Red,
 Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
 Like guilty beauty, chasten'd and more fair:
 Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
 She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
 And Clytia, pondering between many a sun,
 While pettish tears adown her petals run:
 And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth,
 And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
 Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
 Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
 And Valisnerian lotus, thither flown"
 From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
 And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
 Isola d'oro!- Fior di Levante!
 And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
 With Indian Cupid down the holy river-
 Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
 To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven:

 "Spirit! that dwellest where,
 In the deep sky,
 The terrible and fair,
 In beauty vie!
 Beyond the line of blue-
 The boundary of the star
 Which turneth at the view
 Of thy barrier and thy bar-
 Of the barrier overgone
 By the comets who were cast
 From their pride and from their throne
 To be drudges till the last-
 To be carriers of fire
 (The red fire of their heart)
 With speed that may not tire
 And with pain that shall not part-
 Who livest- that we know-
 In Eternity- we feel-
 But the shadow of whose brow
 What spirit shall reveal?
 Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
 Thy messenger hath known
 Have dream'd for thy Infinity
 A model of their own-
 Thy will is done, O God!
 The star hath ridden high
 Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
 Beneath thy burning eye;
 And here, in thought, to thee-
 In thought that can alone
 Ascend thy empire and so be
 A partner of thy throne-
 By winged Fantasy,
 My embassy is given,
 Till secrecy shall knowledge be
 In the environs of Heaven."

 She ceas'd- and buried then her burning cheek
 Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
 A shelter from the fervor of His eye;
 For the stars trembled at the Deity.
 She stirr'd not- breath'd not- for a voice was there
 How solemnly pervading the calm air!
 A sound of silence on the startled ear
 Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
 Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
 "Silence"- which is the merest word of all.
 All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
 Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings-
 But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
 The eternal voice of God is passing by,
 And the red winds are withering in the sky:-

 "What tho 'in worlds which sightless cycles run,
 Linked to a little system, and one sun-
 Where all my love is folly and the crowd
 Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
 The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath-
 (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)
 What tho' in worlds which own a single sun
 The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
 Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
 To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven!

 Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
 With all thy train, athwart the moony sky-
 Apart- like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
 And wing to other worlds another light!
 Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
 To the proud orbs that twinkle- and so be
 To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban
 Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!"

 Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
 The single-mooned eve!- on Earth we plight
 Our faith to one love- and one moon adore-
 The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
 As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
 Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
 And bent o'er sheeny mountains and dim plain
 Her way, but left not yet her Therasaean reign.


PART
II


 High on a mountain of enamell'd head-
 Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
 Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
 Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
 With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven"
 What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven-
 Of rosy head that, towering far away
 Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
 Of sunken suns at eve- at noon of night,
 While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light-
 Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
 Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
 Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
 Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
 And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
 Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
 Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
 Of their own dissolution, while they die-
 Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
 A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
 Sat gently on these columns as a crown-
 A window of one circular diamond, there,
 Look'd out above into the purple air,
 And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
 And hallow'd all the beauty twice again,
 Save, when, between th' empyrean and that ring,
 Some eager spirit Flapp'd his dusky wing.
 But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
 The dimness of this world: that greyish green
 That Nature loves the best Beauty's grave
 Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave-
 And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout
 That from his marble dwelling peered out,
 Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche-
 Achaian statues in a world so rich!
 Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis-
 From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
 Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave
 Is now upon thee- but too late to save!

 Sound loves to revel in a summer night:
 Witness the murmur of the grey twilight
 That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
 Of many a wild star-gazer long ago-
 That stealeth ever on the ear of him
 Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,
 And sees the darkness coming as a cloud-
 Is not its form- its voice- most palpable and loud?

 But what is this?- it cometh, and it brings
 A music with it- 'tis the rush of wings-
 A pause- and then a sweeping, falling strain
 And Nesace is in her halls again.
 From the wild energy of wanton haste
 Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;
 And zone that clung around her gentle waist
 Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
 Within the centre of that hall to breathe,
 She paused and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,
 The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair
 And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there.

 Young flowers were whispering in melody
 To happy flowers that night- and tree to tree;
 Fountains were gushing music as they fell
 In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
 Yet silence came upon material things-
 Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings-
 And sound alone that from the spirit sprang
 Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:

 "'Neath the blue-bell or streamer-
 Or tufted wild spray
 That keeps, from the dreamer,
 The moonbeam away-
 Bright beings! that ponder,
 With half closing eyes,
 On the stars which your wonder
 Hath drawn from the skies,
 Till they glance thro' the shade, and
 Come down to your brow
 Like- eyes of the maiden
 Who calls on you now-
 Arise! from your dreaming
 In violet bowers,
 To duty beseeming
 These star-litten hours-
 And shake from your tresses
 Encumber'd with dew
 The breath of those kisses
 That cumber them too-
 (O! how, without you, Love!
 Could angels be blest?)
 Those kisses of true Love
 That lull'd ye to rest!
 Up!- shake from your wing
 Each hindering thing:
 The dew of the night-
 It would weigh down your flight
 And true love caresses-
 O, leave them apart!
 They are light on the tresses,
 But lead on the heart.

 Ligeia! Ligeia!
 My beautiful one!
 Whose harshest idea
 Will to melody run,
 O! is it thy will
 On the breezes to toss?
 Or, capriciously still,
 Like the lone Albatros,
 Incumbent on night
 (As she on the air)
 To keep watch with delight
 On the harmony there?

 Ligeia! wherever
 Thy image may be,
 No magic shall sever
 Thy music from thee.
 Thou hast bound many eyes
 In a dreamy sleep-
 But the strains still arise
 Which thy vigilance keep-
 The sound of the rain,
 Which leaps down to the flower-
 And dances again
 In the rhythm of the shower-
 The murmur that springs
 From the growing of grass
 Are the music of things-
 But are modell'd, alas!-
 Away, then, my dearest,
 Oh! hie thee away
 To the springs that lie clearest
 Beneath the moon-ray-
 To lone lake that smiles,
 In its dream of deep rest,
 At the many star-isles
 That enjewel its breast-
 Where wild flowers, creeping,
 Have mingled their shade,
 On its margin is sleeping
 Full many a maid-
 Some have left the cool glade, and
 Have slept with the bee-
 Arouse them, my maiden,
 On moorland and lea-
 Go! breathe on their slumber,
 All softly in ear,
 Thy musical number
 They slumbered to hear-
 For what can awaken
 An angel so soon,
 Whose sleep hath been taken
 Beneath the cold moon,
 As the spell which no slumber
 Of witchery may test,
 The rhythmical number
 Which lull'd him to rest?"

 Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
 A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',
 Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight-
 Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light
 That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar,
 O Death! from eye of God upon that star:
 Sweet was that error- sweeter still that death-
 Sweet was that error- even with us the breath
 Of Science dims the mirror of our joy-
 To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy-
 For what (to them) availeth it to know
 That Truth is Falsehood- or that Bliss is Woe?
 Sweet was their death- with them to die was rife
 With the last ecstasy of satiate life-
 Beyond that death no immortality-
 But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be'!-
 And there- oh! may my weary spirit dwell-
 Apart from Heaven's Eternity- and yet how far from Hell!
 What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
 Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
 But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
 To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
 A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-
 O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
 Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
 Unguided Love hath fallen- 'mid "tears of perfect moan."
 He was a goodly spirit- he who fell:
 A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well-
 A gazer on the lights that shine above-
 A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
 What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,
 And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair-
 And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy
 To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
 The night had found (to him a night of woe)
 Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo-
 Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
 And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
 Here sat he with his love- his dark eye bent
 With eagle gaze along the firmament:
 Now turn'd it upon her- but ever then
 It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

 "Ianthe, dearest, see- how dim that ray!
 How lovely 'tis to look so far away!
 She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve
 I left her gorgeous halls- nor mourn'd to leave.
 That eve- that eve- I should remember well-
 The sun-ray dropp'd in Lemnos, with a spell
 On th' arabesque carving of a gilded hall
 Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-
 And on my eyelids- O the heavy light!
 How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!
 On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
 With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
 But O that light!- I slumber'd- Death, the while,
 Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
 So softly that no single silken hair
 Awoke that slept- or knew that he was there.

 "The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
 Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon;
 More beauty clung around her column'd wall
 Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
 And when old Time my wing did disenthral
 Thence sprang I- as the eagle from his tower,
 And years I left behind me in an hour.
 What time upon her airy bounds I hung,
 One half the garden of her globe was flung
 Unrolling as a chart unto my view-
 Tenantless cities of the desert too!
 Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
 And half I wish'd to be again of men."

 "My Angelo! and why of them to be?
 A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-
 And greener fields than in yon world above,
 And woman's loveliness- and passionate love."

 "But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
 Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,
 Perhaps my brain grew dizzy- but the world
 I left so late was into chaos hurl'd-
 Sprang from her station, on the winds apart.
 And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
 Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar
 And fell- not swiftly as I rose before,
 But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
 Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
 Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
 For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-
 Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
 A red Daedalion on the timid Earth."

 "We came- and to thy Earth- but not to us
 Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
 We came, my love; around, above, below,
 Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
 Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
 She grants to us, as granted by her God-
 But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd
 Never his fairy wing O'er fairier world!
 Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
 Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
 When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
 Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea-
 But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,
 As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
 We paused before the heritage of men,
 And thy star trembled- as doth Beauty then!"

 Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
 The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
 They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
 Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
 
 
 
Alone

 From childhood's hour I have not been
 As others were; I have not seen
 As others saw; I could not bring
 My passions from a common spring.
 From the same source I have not taken
 My sorrow; I could not awaken
 My heart to joy at the same tone;
 And all I loved, I loved alone.
 Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
 Of a most stormy life- was drawn
 From every depth of good and ill
 The mystery which binds me still:
 From the torrent, or the fountain,
 From the red cliff of the mountain,
 From the sun that round me rolled
 In its autumn tint of gold,
 From the lightning in the sky
 As it passed me flying by,
 From the thunder and the storm,
 And the cloud that took the form
 (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
 Of a demon in my view.
 
 
 

Annabel
Lee

 It was many and many a year ago,
 In a kingdom by the sea,
 That a maiden there lived whom you may know
 By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought
 Than to love and be loved by me.

 I was a child and she was a child,
 In this kingdom by the sea;
 But we loved with a love that was more than love-
 I and my Annabel Lee;
 With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
 Coveted her and me.

 And this was the reason that, long ago,
 In this kingdom by the sea,
 A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
 My beautiful Annabel Lee;
 So that her highborn kinsman came
 And bore her away from me,
 To shut her up in a sepulchre
 In this kingdom by the sea.

 The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
 Went envying her and me-
 Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
 In this kingdom by the sea)
 That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
 Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

 But our love it was stronger by far than the love
 Of those who were older than we-
 Of many far wiser than we-
 And neither the angels in heaven above,
 Nor the demons down under the sea,
 Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

 For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
 Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
 In the sepulchre there by the sea,
 In her tomb by the sounding sea.
 
 
 

The Bells

 I
 Hear the sledges with the bells-
 Silver bells!
 What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
 How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
 In the icy air of night!
 While the stars that oversprinkle
 All the heavens, seem to twinkle
 With a crystalline delight;
 Keeping time, time, time,
 In a sort of Runic rhyme,
 To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
 From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
 Bells, bells, bells-
 From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

 II

 Hear the mellow wedding bells,
 Golden bells!
 What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
 Through the balmy air of night
 How they ring out their delight!
 From the molten-golden notes,
 And an in tune,
 What a liquid ditty floats
 To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
 On the moon!
 Oh, from out the sounding cells,
 What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
 How it swells!
 How it dwells
 On the Future! how it tells
 Of the rapture that impels
 To the swinging and the ringing
 Of the bells, bells, bells,
 Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
 Bells, bells, bells-
 To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

 III

 Hear the loud alarum bells-
 Brazen bells!
 What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
 In the startled ear of night
 How they scream out their affright!
 Too much horrified to speak,
 They can only shriek, shriek,
 Out of tune,
 In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
 Leaping higher, higher, higher,
 With a desperate desire,
 And a resolute endeavor,
 Now- now to sit or never,
 By the side of the pale-faced moon.
 Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
 What a tale their terror tells
 Of Despair!
 How they clang, and clash, and roar!
 What a horror they outpour
 On the bosom of the palpitating air!
 Yet the ear it fully knows,
 By the twanging,
 And the clanging,
 How the danger ebbs and flows:
 Yet the ear distinctly tells,
 In the jangling,
 And the wrangling,
 How the danger sinks and swells,
 By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
 Of the bells-
 Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
 Bells, bells, bells-
 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

 IV

 Hear the tolling of the bells-
 Iron Bells!
 What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
 In the silence of the night,
 How we shiver with affright
 At the melancholy menace of their tone!
 For every sound that floats
 From the rust within their throats
 Is a groan.
 And the people- ah, the people-
 They that dwell up in the steeple,
 All Alone
 And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
 In that muffled monotone,
 Feel a glory in so rolling
 On the human heart a stone-
 They are neither man nor woman-
 They are neither brute nor human-
 They are Ghouls:
 And their king it is who tolls;
 And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
 Rolls
 A paean from the bells!
 And his merry bosom swells
 With the paean of the bells!
 And he dances, and he yells;
 Keeping time, time, time,
 In a sort of Runic rhyme,
 To the paean of the bells-
 Of the bells:
 Keeping time, time, time,
 In a sort of Runic rhyme,
 To the throbbing of the bells-
 Of the bells, bells, bells-
 To the sobbing of the bells;
 Keeping time, time, time,
 As he knells, knells, knells,
 In a happy Runic rhyme,
 To the rolling of the bells-
 Of the bells, bells, bells:
 To the tolling of the bells,
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
 Bells, bells, bells-
 To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
 
 
 

The Bridal
Ballad

 The ring is on my hand,
 And the wreath is on my brow;
 Satin and jewels grand
 Are all at my command,
 And I am happy now.

 And my lord he loves me well;
 But, when first he breathed his vow,
 I felt my bosom swell-
 For the words rang as a knell,
 And the voice seemed his who fell
 In the battle down the dell,
 And who is happy now.

 But he spoke to re-assure me,
 And he kissed my pallid brow,
 While a reverie came o'er me,
 And to the church-yard bore me,
 And I sighed to him before me,
 Thinking him dead D'Elormie,
 "Oh, I am happy now!"

 And thus the words were spoken,
 And this the plighted vow,
 And, though my faith be broken,
 And, though my heart be broken,
 Here is a ring, as token
 That I am happy now!

 Would God I could awaken!
 For I dream I know not how!
 And my soul is sorely shaken
 Lest an evil step be taken,-
 Lest the dead who is forsaken
 May not be happy now.
 
 
 

The City
In the Sea

 Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
 In a strange city lying alone
 Far down within the dim West,
 Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
 Have gone to their eternal rest.
 There shrines and palaces and towers
 (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
 Resemble nothing that is ours.
 Around, by lifting winds forgot,
 Resignedly beneath the sky
 The melancholy waters lie.

 No rays from the holy heaven come down
 On the long night-time of that town;
 But light from out the lurid sea
 Streams up the turrets silently-
 Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
 Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
 Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
 Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
 Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
 Up many and many a marvellous shrine
 Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
 The viol, the violet, and the vine.
 Resignedly beneath the sky
 The melancholy waters lie.
 So blend the turrets and shadows there
 That all seem pendulous in air,
 While from a proud tower in the town
 Death looks gigantically down.

 There open fanes and gaping graves
 Yawn level with the luminous waves;
 But not the riches there that lie
 In each idol's diamond eye-
 Not the gaily-jewelled dead
 Tempt the waters from their bed;
 For no ripples curl, alas!
 Along that wilderness of glass-
 No swellings tell that winds may be
 Upon some far-off happier sea-
 No heavings hint that winds have been
 On seas less hideously serene.

 But lo, a stir is in the air!
 The wave- there is a movement there!
 As if the towers had thrust aside,
 In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
 As if their tops had feebly given
 A void within the filmy Heaven.
 The waves have now a redder glow-
 The hours are breathing faint and low-
 And when, amid no earthly moans,
 Down, down that town shall settle hence,
 Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
 Shall do it reverence.
 
 
 

The Coliseum

 Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
 Of lofty contemplation left to Time
 By buried centuries of pomp and power!
 At length- at length- after so many days
 Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
 (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
 I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
 Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
 My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

 Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
 Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
 I feel ye now- I feel ye in your strength-
 O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king
 Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
 O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
 Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

 Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
 Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
 A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
 Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
 Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
 Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
 Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
 Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
 The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

 But stay! these walls- these ivy-clad arcades-
 These moldering plinths- these sad and blackened shafts-
 These vague entablatures- this crumbling frieze-
 These shattered cornices- this wreck- this ruin-
 These stones- alas! these grey stones- are they all-
 All of the famed, and the colossal left
 By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

 "Not all"- the Echoes answer me- "not all!
 Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
 From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
 As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
 We rule the hearts of mightiest men- we rule
 With a despotic sway all giant minds.
 We are not impotent- we pallid stones.
 Not all our power is gone- not all our fame-
 Not all the magic of our high renown-
 Not all the wonder that encircles us-
 Not all the mysteries that in us lie-
 Not all the memories that hang upon
 And cling around about us as a garment,
 Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."
 
 
 

The Conqueror
Worm

 Lo! 'tis a gala night
 Within the lonesome latter years!
 An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
 In veils, and drowned in tears,
 Sit in a theatre, to see
 A play of hopes and fears,
 While the orchestra breathes fitfully
 The music of the spheres.

 Mimes, in the form of God on high,
 Mutter and mumble low,
 And hither and thither fly-
 Mere puppets they, who come and go
 At bidding of vast formless things
 That shift the scenery to and fro,
 Flapping from out their Condor wings
 Invisible Woe!

 That motley drama- oh, be sure
 It shall not be forgot!
 With its Phantom chased for evermore,
 By a crowd that seize it not,
 Through a circle that ever returneth in
 To the self-same spot,
 And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
 And Horror the soul of the plot.

 But see, amid the mimic rout
 A crawling shape intrude!
 A blood-red thing that writhes from out
 The scenic solitude!
 It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
 The mimes become its food,
 And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
 In human gore imbued.

 Out- out are the lights- out all!
 And, over each quivering form,
 The curtain, a funeral pall,
 Comes down with the rush of a storm,
 While the angels, all pallid and wan,
 Uprising, unveiling, affirm
 That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
 And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
 
 
 

A Dream

 In visions of the dark night
 I have dreamed of joy departed-
 But a waking dream of life and light
 Hath left me broken-hearted.

 Ah! what is not a dream by day
 To him whose eyes are cast
 On things around him with a ray
 Turned back upon the past?

 That holy dream- that holy dream,
 While all the world were chiding,
 Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
 A lonely spirit guiding.

 What though that light, thro' storm and night,
 So trembled from afar-
 What could there be more purely bright
 In Truth's day-star?
 
 
 

Dreamland

 By a route obscure and lonely,
 Haunted by ill angels only,
 Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
 On a black throne reigns upright,
 I have reached these lands but newly
 From an ultimate dim Thule-
 From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
 Out of SPACE- out of TIME.

 Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
 And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
 With forms that no man can discover
 For the tears that drip all over;
 Mountains toppling evermore
 Into seas without a shore;
 Seas that restlessly aspire,
 Surging, unto skies of fire;
 Lakes that endlessly outspread
 Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
 Their still waters- still and chilly
 With the snows of the lolling lily.

 By the lakes that thus outspread
 Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
 Their sad waters, sad and chilly
 With the snows of the lolling lily,-
 By the mountains- near the river
 Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
 By the grey woods,- by the swamp
 Where the toad and the newt encamp-
 By the dismal tarns and pools
 Where dwell the Ghouls,-
 By each spot the most unholy-
 In each nook most melancholy-
 There the traveller meets aghast
 Sheeted Memories of the Past-
 Shrouded forms that start and sigh
 As they pass the wanderer by-
 White-robed forms of friends long given,
 In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.

 For the heart whose woes are legion
 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
 For the spirit that walks in shadow
 'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
 But the traveller, travelling through it,
 May not- dare not openly view it!
 Never its mysteries are exposed
 To the weak human eye unclosed;
 So wills its King, who hath forbid
 The uplifting of the fringed lid;
 And thus the sad Soul that here passes
 Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

 By a route obscure and lonely,
 Haunted by ill angels only,
 Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
 On a black throne reigns upright,
 I have wandered home but newly
 From this ultimate dim Thule.
 
 
 

Dreams

 Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
 My spirit not awakening, till the beam
 Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
 Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
 'Twere better than the cold reality
 Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
 And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
 A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
 But should it be- that dream eternally
 Continuing- as dreams have been to me
 In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
 'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
 For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
 I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
 And loveliness,- have left my very heart
 In climes of my imagining, apart
 From mine own home, with beings that have been
 Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
 'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
 From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
 Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
 Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
 Its image on my spirit- or the moon
 Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
 Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
 That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.

 I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
 I have been happy- and I love the theme:
 Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
 As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
 Of semblance with reality, which brings
 To the delirious eye, more lovely things
 Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
 Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
 
 
 

A Dream
Within a Dream

 Take this kiss upon the brow!
 And, in parting from you now,
 Thus much let me avow-
 You are not wrong, who deem
 That my days have been a dream;
 Yet if hope has flown away
 In a night, or in a day,
 In a vision, or in none,
 Is it therefore the less gone?
 All that we see or seem
 Is but a dream within a dream.

 I stand amid the roar
 Of a surf-tormented shore,
 And I hold within my hand
 Grains of the golden sand-
 How few! yet how they creep
 Through my fingers to the deep,
 While I weep- while I weep!
 O God! can I not grasp
 Them with a tighter clasp?
 O God! can I not save
 One from the pitiless wave?
 Is all that we see or seem
 But a dream within a dream?
 
 
 

Eldorado

 Gaily bedight,
 A gallant knight,
 In sunshine and in shadow,
 Had journeyed long,
 Singing a song,
 In search of Eldorado.

 But he grew old-
 This knight so bold-
 And o'er his heart a shadow
 Fell as he found
 No spot of ground
 That looked like Eldorado.

 And, as his strength
 Failed him at length,
 He met a pilgrim shadow-
 "Shadow," said he,
 "Where can it be-
 This land of Eldorado?"

 "Over the Mountains
 Of the Moon,
 Down the Valley of the Shadow,
 Ride, boldly ride,"
 The shade replied-
 "If you seek for Eldorado!"
 
 
 

Elizabeth

 Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
 [Logic and common usage so commanding]
 In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
 Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
 And I have other reasons for so doing
 Besides my innate love of contradiction;
 Each poet - if a poet - in pursuing
 The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
 Has studied very little of his part,
 Read nothing, written less - in short's a fool
 Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
 Being ignorant of one important rule,
 Employed in even the theses of the school-
 Called - I forget the heathenish Greek name
 [Called anything, its meaning is the same]
 "Always write first things uppermost in the heart."
 
 
 

An Enigma

 "Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
 "Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
 Through all the flimsy things we see at once
 As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
 Trash of all trash!- how can a lady don it?
 Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
 Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
 Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
 And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
 The general tuckermanities are arrant
 Bubbles- ephemeral and so transparent-
 But this is, now- you may depend upon it-
 Stable, opaque, immortal- all by dint
 Of the dear names that he concealed within 't.
 
 
 

Eulalie

 I dwelt alone
 In a world of moan,
 And my soul was a stagnant tide,
 Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-
 Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

 Ah, less- less bright
 The stars of the night
 Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
 That the vapor can make
 With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
 Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl-
 Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless
 curl.

 Now Doubt- now Pain
 Come never again,
 For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
 And all day long
 Shines, bright and strong,
 Astarte within the sky,
 While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
 While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
 
 
 

Evening
Star

 'Twas noontide of summer,
 And mid-time of night;
 And stars, in their orbits,
 Shone pale, thro' the light
 Of the brighter, cold moon,
 'Mid planets her slaves,
 Herself in the Heavens,
 Her beam on the waves.
 I gazed awhile
 On her cold smile;
 Too cold- too cold for me-
 There pass'd, as a shroud,
 A fleecy cloud,
 And I turned away to thee,
 Proud Evening Star,
 In thy glory afar,
 And dearer thy beam shall be;
 For joy to my heart
 Is the proud part
 Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
 And more I admire
 Thy distant fire,
 Than that colder, lowly light.
 
 
 

Fairy-Land

 Dim vales- and shadowy floods-
 And cloudy-looking woods,
 Whose forms we can't discover
 For the tears that drip all over!
 Huge moons there wax and wane-
 Again- again- again-
 Every moment of the night-
 Forever changing places-
 And they put out the star-light
 With the breath from their pale faces.
 About twelve by the moon-dial,
 One more filmy than the rest
 (A kind which, upon trial,
 They have found to be the best)
 Comes down- still down- and down,
 With its centre on the crown
 Of a mountain's eminence,
 While its wide circumference
 In easy drapery falls
 Over hamlets, over halls,
 Wherever they may be-
 O'er the strange woods- o'er the sea-
 Over spirits on the wing-
 Over every drowsy thing-
 And buries them up quite
 In a labyrinth of light-
 And then, how deep!- O, deep!
 Is the passion of their sleep.
 In the morning they arise,
 And their moony covering
 Is soaring in the skies,
 With the tempests as they toss,
 Like- almost anything-
 Or a yellow Albatross.
 They use that moon no more
 For the same end as before-
 Videlicet, a tent-
 Which I think extravagant:
 Its atomies, however,
 Into a shower dissever,
 Of which those butterflies
 Of Earth, who seek the skies,
 And so come down again,
 (Never-contented things!)
 Have brought a specimen
 Upon their quivering wings.
 
 
 

For Annie

 Thank Heaven! the crisis-
 The danger is past,
 And the lingering illness
 Is over at last-
 And the fever called "Living"
 Is conquered at last.

 Sadly, I know
 I am shorn of my strength,
 And no muscle I move
 As I lie at full length-
 But no matter!-I feel
 I am better at length.

 And I rest so composedly,
 Now, in my bed
 That any beholder
 Might fancy me dead-
 Might start at beholding me,
 Thinking me dead.

 The moaning and groaning,
 The sighing and sobbing,
 Are quieted now,
 With that horrible throbbing
 At heart:- ah, that horrible,
 Horrible throbbing!

 The sickness- the nausea-
 The pitiless pain-
 Have ceased, with the fever
 That maddened my brain-
 With the fever called "Living"
 That burned in my brain.

 And oh! of all tortures
 That torture the worst
 Has abated- the terrible
 Torture of thirst
 For the naphthaline river
 Of Passion accurst:-
 I have drunk of a water
 That quenches all thirst:-

 Of a water that flows,
 With a lullaby sound,
 From a spring but a very few
 Feet under ground-
 From a cavern not very far
 Down under ground.

 And ah! let it never
 Be foolishly said
 That my room it is gloomy
 And narrow my bed;
 For man never slept
 In a different bed-
 And, to sleep, you must slumber
 In just such a bed.

 My tantalized spirit
 Here blandly reposes,
 Forgetting, or never
 Regretting its roses-
 Its old agitations
 Of myrtles and roses:

 For now, while so quietly
 Lying, it fancies
 A holier odor
 About it, of pansies-
 A rosemary odor,
 Commingled with pansies-
 With rue and the beautiful
 Puritan pansies.

 And so it lies happily,
 Bathing in many
 A dream of the truth
 And the beauty of Annie-
 Drowned in a bath
 Of the tresses of Annie.

 She tenderly kissed me,
 She fondly caressed,
 And then I fell gently
 To sleep on her breast-
 Deeply to sleep
 From the heaven of her breast.

 When the light was extinguished,
 She covered me warm,
 And she prayed to the angels
 To keep me from harm-
 To the queen of the angels
 To shield me from harm.

 And I lie so composedly,
 Now, in my bed,
 (Knowing her love)
 That you fancy me dead-
 And I rest so contentedly,
 Now, in my bed,
 (With her love at my breast)
 That you fancy me dead-
 That you shudder to look at me,
 Thinking me dead.

 But my heart it is brighter
 Than all of the many
 Stars in the sky,
 For it sparkles with Annie-
 It glows with the light
 Of the love of my Annie-
 With the thought of the light
 Of the eyes of my Annie.
 
 
 

"The
Happiest Day"

 The happiest day -- the happiest hour
 My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
 The highest hope of pride and power,
 I feel hath flown.

 Of power! said I? yes! such I ween;
 But they have vanish'd long, alas!
 The visions of my youth have been-
 But let them pass.

 And, pride, what have I now with thee?
 Another brow may even inherit
 The venom thou hast pour'd on me
 Be still, my spirit!

 The happiest day -- the happiest hour
 Mine eyes shall see -- have ever seen,
 The brightest glance of pride and power,
 I feel- have been:

 But were that hope of pride and power
 Now offer'd with the pain
 Even then I felt -- that brightest hour
 I would not live again:

 For on its wing was dark alloy,
 And, as it flutter'd -- fell
 An essence -- powerful to destroy
 A soul that knew it well.
 
 
 

The Haunted
Palace

 In the greenest of our valleys
 By good angels tenanted,
 Once a fair and stately palace-
 Radiant palace- reared its head.
 In the monarch Thought's dominion-
 It stood there!
 Never seraph spread a pinion
 Over fabric half so fair!

 Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
 On its roof did float and flow,
 (This- all this- was in the olden
 Time long ago,)
 And every gentle air that dallied,
 In that sweet day,
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
 A winged odor went away.

 Wanderers in that happy valley,
 Through two luminous windows, saw
 Spirits moving musically,
 To a lute's well-tuned law,
 Round about a throne where, sitting
 (Porphyrogene!)
 In state his glory well-befitting,
 The ruler of the realm was seen.

 And all with pearl and ruby glowing
 Was the fair palace door,
 Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
 And sparkling evermore,
 A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
 Was but to sing,
 In voices of surpassing beauty,
 The wit and wisdom of their king.

 But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
 Assailed the monarch's high estate.
 (Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
 Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
 And round about his home the glory
 That blushed and bloomed,
 Is but a dim-remembered story
 Of the old time entombed.

 And travellers, now, within that valley,
 Through the red-litten windows see
 Vast forms, that move fantastically
 To a discordant melody,
 While, like a ghastly rapid river,
 Through the pale door
 A hideous throng rush out forever
 And laugh- but smile no more.
 
 
 

Hymn

 At morn- at noon- at twilight dim-
 Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
 In joy and woe- in good and ill-
 Mother of God, be with me still!
 When the hours flew brightly by,
 And not a cloud obscured the sky,
 My soul, lest it should truant be,
 Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
 Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
 Darkly my Present and my Past,
 Let my Future radiant shine
 With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
 
 
 

Hymn
to Aristogeiton and Harmodius



Translation
from the Greek.

I.

Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal
 Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
 And to Athens deliverance gave.

 II.

Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
 In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home -
 Where Achilles and Diomed rest.

 III.

In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
 Like Harmodious, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
 A libation of Tyranny's blood.

 IV.

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
 Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame
 Embalmed in their echoing songs!
 
 
 
Imitation

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
 
 
 

"In Youth
I Have Known One"

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!

 I.

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
 In secret communing held - as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
 Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
 A passionate light - such for his spirit was fit -
And yet that spirit knew - not in the hour
Of its own fervour - what had o'er it power.

 II.

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
 To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
 With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told - or is it of a thought
 The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass?

 III.

Doth o'er us pass, when as th' expanding eye
 To the loved object - so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
 And yet it need not be - (that object) hid
From us in life - but common - which doth lie
 Each hour before us - but then only bid
With a strange sound, as of a harpstring broken
T' awake us - 'Tis a symbol and a token -

 IV.

Of what in other worlds shall be - and given
 In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
 Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
 Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
 
 
 

"In the
Greenest of the Valleys"

 I.
 In the greenest of our valleys,
 By good angels tenanted,
 Once fair and stately palace --
 Radiant palace --reared its head.
 In the monarch Thought's dominion --
 It stood there!
 Never seraph spread a pinion
 Over fabric half so fair.

 II.
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
 On its roof did float and flow;
 (This --all this --was in the olden
 Time long ago)
 And every gentle air that dallied,
 In that sweet day,
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
 A winged odour went away.

 III.
 Wanderers in that happy valley
 Through two luminous windows saw
 Spirits moving musically
 To a lute's well-tuned law,
 Round about a throne, where sitting
 (Porphyrogene!)
 In state his glory well befitting,
 The ruler of the realm was seen.

 IV.
 And all with pearl and ruby glowing
 Was the fair palace door,
 Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
 And sparkling evermore,
 A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
 Was but to sing,
 In voices of surpassing beauty,
 The wit and wisdom of their king.

 V.
 But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
 Assailed the monarch's high estate;
 (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
 Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
 And, round about his home, the glory
 That blushed and bloomed
 Is but a dim-remembered story
 Of the old time entombed.

 VI.
 And travellers now within that valley,
 Through the red-litten windows, see
 Vast forms that move fantastically
 To a discordant melody;
 While, like a rapid ghastly river,
 Through the pale door,
 A hideous throng rush out forever,
 And laugh --but smile no more.
 
 
 

Israfel

 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
 "Whose heart-strings are a lute";
 None sing so wildly well
 As the angel Israfel,
 And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
 Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
 Of his voice, all mute.

 Tottering above
 In her highest noon,
 The enamored moon
 Blushes with love,
 While, to listen, the red levin
 (With the rapid Pleiads, even,
 Which were seven,)
 Pauses in Heaven.

 And they say (the starry choir
 And the other listening things)
 That Israfeli's fire
 Is owing to that lyre
 By which he sits and sings-
 The trembling living wire
 Of those unusual strings.

 But the skies that angel trod,
 Where deep thoughts are a duty-
 Where Love's a grown-up God-
 Where the Houri glances are
 Imbued with all the beauty
 Which we worship in a star.

 Therefore thou art not wrong,
 Israfeli, who despisest
 An unimpassioned song;
 To thee the laurels belong,
 Best bard, because the wisest!
 Merrily live, and long!

 The ecstasies above
 With thy burning measures suit-
 Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
 With the fervor of thy lute-
 Well may the stars be mute!

 Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
 Is a world of sweets and sours;
 Our flowers are merely- flowers,
 And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
 Is the sunshine of ours.

 If I could dwell
 Where Israfel
 Hath dwelt, and he where I,
 He might not sing so wildly well
 A mortal melody,
 While a bolder note than this might swell
 From my lyre within the sky.
 
 
 

The Lake

 In spring of youth it was my lot
 To haunt of the wide world a spot
 The which I could not love the less-
 So lovely was the loneliness
 Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
 And the tall pines that towered around.

 But when the Night had thrown her pall
 Upon that spot, as upon all,
 And the mystic wind went by
 Murmuring in melody-
 Then- ah then I would awake
 To the terror of the lone lake.

 Yet that terror was not fright,
 But a tremulous delight-
 A feeling not the jewelled mine
 Could teach or bribe me to define-
 Nor Love- although the Love were thine.

 Death was in that poisonous wave,
 And in its gulf a fitting grave
 For him who thence could solace bring
 To his lone imagining-
 Whose solitary soul could make
 An Eden of that dim lake.
 
 
 

Lenore

 Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
 Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
 And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!
 See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
 Come! let the burial rite be read- the funeral song be sung!-
 An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
 A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

 "Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
 And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her- that she died!
 How shall the ritual, then, be read?- the requiem how be sung
 By you- by yours, the evil eye,- by yours, the slanderous tongue
 That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

 Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
 Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
 The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
 Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
 bride.
 For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
 The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
 The life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes.

 "Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
 From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
 From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
 Heaven!
 Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
 Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
 And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
 But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"
 
 
 

The Raven

 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
 "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
 Only this, and nothing more."

 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
 Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
 From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
 Nameless here for evermore.

 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
 Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
 "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
 This it is, and nothing more."

 Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
 "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
 That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door;-
 Darkness there, and nothing more.

 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
 fearing,
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
 This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"-
 Merely this, and nothing more.

 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
 Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
 "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-
 Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-
 'Tis the wind and nothing more."

 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
 flutter,
 In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
 Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
 he;
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
 Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
 "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no
 craven,
 Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
 Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
 Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
 With such name as "Nevermore."

 But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
 Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-
 Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown
 before-
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
 Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
 "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
 Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
 Of 'Never- nevermore'."

 But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and
 door;
 Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
 Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
 She shall press, ah, nevermore!

 Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
 Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
 "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he
 hath sent thee
 Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
 Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
 devil!-
 Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
 Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
 On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
 Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!"
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
 devil!
 By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
 Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked,
 upstarting-
 "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
 Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
 door!"
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
 On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
 And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the
 floor;
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
 Shall be lifted- nevermore!
 
 
 

Romance

 Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
 With drowsy head and folded wing,
 Among the green leaves as they shake
 Far down within some shadowy lake,
 To me a painted paroquet
 Hath been- a most familiar bird-
 Taught me my alphabet to say-
 To lisp my very earliest word
 While in the wild wood I did lie,
 A child- with a most knowing eye.

 Of late, eternal Condor years
 So shake the very Heaven on high
 With tumult as they thunder by,
 I have no time for idle cares
 Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
 And when an hour with calmer wings
 Its down upon my spirit flings-
 That little time with lyre and rhyme
 To while away- forbidden things!
 My heart would feel to be a crime
 Unless it trembled with the strings.
 
 
 
"Sancta
Maria!"


(From
Morella)

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes -
Upon the sinner's sacrifice,
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.

At morn - at noon - at twilight dim -
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo - in good and ill -
Mother of God, be with me still!

When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
 
 
 

Serenade

 So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
 I feel it more than half a crime,
 When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
 To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
 At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
 An image of Elysium lies:
 Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
 Form in the deep another seven:
 Endymion nodding from above
 Sees in the sea a second love.
 Within the valleys dim and brown,
 And on the spectral mountain's crown,
 The wearied light is dying down,
 And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
 Are redolent of sleep, as I
 Am redolent of thee and thine
 Enthralling love, my Adeline.
 But list, O list,- so soft and low
 Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
 That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
 My words the music of a dream.
 Thus, while no single sound too rude
 Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
 Our thoughts, our souls- O God above!
 In every deed shall mingle, love.
 
 
 

Silence

 There are some qualities- some incorporate things,
 That have a double life, which thus is made
 A type of that twin entity which springs
 From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
 There is a two-fold Silence- sea and shore-
 Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
 Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
 Some human memories and tearful lore,
 Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
 He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
 No power hath he of evil in himself;
 But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
 Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
 That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
 No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
 
 
 

The Sleeper

 At midnight, in the month of June,
 I stand beneath the mystic moon.
 An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
 Exhales from out her golden rim,
 And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
 Upon the quiet mountain top,
 Steals drowsily and musically
 Into the universal valley.
 The rosemary nods upon the grave;
 The lily lolls upon the wave;
 Wrapping the fog about its breast,
 The ruin molders into rest;
 Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
 A conscious slumber seems to take,
 And would not, for the world, awake.
 All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies
 Irene, with her Destinies!

 O, lady bright! can it be right-
 This window open to the night?
 The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
 Laughingly through the lattice drop-
 The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
 Flit through thy chamber in and out,
 And wave the curtain canopy
 So fitfully- so fearfully-
 Above the closed and fringed lid
 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
 That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
 Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
 Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
 Why and what art thou dreaming here?
 Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
 A wonder to these garden trees!
 Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
 Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
 And this all solemn silentness!

 The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
 Which is enduring, so be deep!
 Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
 This chamber changed for one more holy,
 This bed for one more melancholy,
 I pray to God that she may lie
 For ever with unopened eye,
 While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

 My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
 As it is lasting, so be deep!
 Soft may the worms about her creep!
 Far in the forest, dim and old,
 For her may some tall vault unfold-
 Some vault that oft has flung its black
 And winged panels fluttering back,
 Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
 Of her grand family funerals-
 Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
 Against whose portal she hath thrown,
 In childhood, many an idle stone-
 Some tomb from out whose sounding door
 She ne'er shall force an echo more,
 Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
 It was the dead who groaned within.
 
 
 

Sonnet
-- To Science

 Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
 Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
 Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
 Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
 How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
 Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
 To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
 Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
 Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
 And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
 To seek a shelter in some happier star?
 Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
 The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
 The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
 
 
 

Song

 I saw thee on thy bridal day-
 When a burning blush came o'er thee,
 Though happiness around thee lay,
 The world all love before thee:

 And in thine eye a kindling light
 (Whatever it might be)
 Was all on Earth my aching sight
 Of Loveliness could see.

 That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame-
 As such it well may pass-
 Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
 In the breast of him, alas!

 Who saw thee on that bridal day,
 When that deep blush would come o'er thee,
 Though happiness around thee lay;
 The world all love before thee.
 
 
 

Spirits
of the Dead

 Thy soul shall find itself alone
 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
 Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
 Into thine hour of secrecy.

 Be silent in that solitude,
 Which is not loneliness- for then
 The spirits of the dead, who stood
 In life before thee, are again
 In death around thee, and their will
 Shall overshadow thee; be still.

 The night, though clear, shall frown,
 And the stars shall not look down
 From their high thrones in the Heaven
 With light like hope to mortals given,
 But their red orbs, without beam,
 To thy weariness shall seem
 As a burning and a fever
 Which would cling to thee for ever.

 Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
 Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
 From thy spirit shall they pass
 No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

 The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
 And the mist upon the hill
 Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
 Is a symbol and a token.
 How it hangs upon the trees,
 A mystery of mysteries!
 
 
 

Stanzas

 How often we forget all time, when lone
 Admiring Nature's universal throne;
 Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense
 Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]

 I

 In youth have I known one with whom the Earth
 In secret communing held- as he with it,
 In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
 Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
 From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
 A passionate light- such for his spirit was fit-
 And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
 Of its own fervor what had o'er it power.


 II

 Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
 To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
 But I will half believe that wild light fraught
 With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
 Hath ever told- or is it of a thought
 The unembodied essence, and no more,
 That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
 As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?

 III

 Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
 To the loved object- so the tear to the lid
 Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
 And yet it need not be- (that object) hid
 From us in life- but common- which doth lie
 Each hour before us- but then only, bid
 With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken,
 To awake us- 'Tis a symbol and a token

 IV

 Of what in other worlds shall be- and given
 In beauty by our God, to those alone
 Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
 Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
 That high tone of the spirit which hath striven,
 Tho' not with Faith- with godliness- whose throne
 With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
 Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
 
 
 

Tamerlane

 Kind solace in a dying hour!
 Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
 I will not madly deem that power
 Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
 Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
 I have no time to dote or dream:
 You call it hope- that fire of fire!
 It is but agony of desire:
 If I can hope- Oh God! I can-
 Its fount is holier- more divine-
 I would not call thee fool, old man,
 But such is not a gift of thine.

 Know thou the secret of a spirit
 Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.
 O yearning heart! I did inherit
 Thy withering portion with the fame,
 The searing glory which hath shone
 Amid the jewels of my throne,
 Halo of Hell! and with a pain
 Not Hell shall make me fear again-
 O craving heart, for the lost flowers
 And sunshine of my summer hours!
 The undying voice of that dead time,
 With its interminable chime,
 Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
 Upon thy emptiness- a knell.

 I have not always been as now:
 The fever'd diadem on my brow
 I claim'd and won usurpingly-
 Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
 Rome to the Caesar- this to me?
 The heritage of a kingly mind,
 And a proud spirit which hath striven
 Triumphantly with human kind.


 On mountain soil I first drew life:
 The mists of the Taglay have shed
 Nightly their dews upon my head,
 And, I believe, the winged strife
 And tumult of the headlong air
 Have nestled in my very hair.

 So late from Heaven- that dew- it fell
 (Mid dreams of an unholy night)
 Upon me with the touch of Hell,
 While the red flashing of the light
 From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
 Appeared to my half-closing eye
 The pageantry of monarchy,
 And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar
 Came hurriedly upon me, telling
 Of human battle, where my voice,
 My own voice, silly child!- was swelling
 (O! how my spirit would rejoice,
 And leap within me at the cry)
 The battle-cry of Victory!

 The rain came down upon my head
 Unshelter'd- and the heavy wind
 Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
 It was but man, I thought, who shed
 Laurels upon me: and the rush-
 The torrent of the chilly air
 Gurgled within my ear the crush
 Of empires- with the captive's prayer-
 The hum of suitors- and the tone
 Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

 My passions, from that hapless hour,
 Usurp'd a tyranny which men
 Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power,
 My innate nature- be it so:
 But father, there liv'd one who, then,
 Then- in my boyhood- when their fire
 Burn'd with a still intenser glow,
 (For passion must, with youth, expire)
 E'en then who knew this iron heart
 In woman's weakness had a part.

 I have no words- alas!- to tell
 The loveliness of loving well!
 Nor would I now attempt to trace
 The more than beauty of a face
 Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
 Are- shadows on th' unstable wind:
 Thus I remember having dwelt
 Some page of early lore upon,
 With loitering eye, till I have felt
 The letters- with their meaning- melt
 To fantasies- with none.

 O, she was worthy of all love!
 Love- as in infancy was mine-
 'Twas such as angel minds above
 Might envy; her young heart the shrine
 On which my every hope and thought
 Were incense- then a goodly gift,
 For they were childish and upright-
 Pure- as her young example taught:
 Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
 Trust to the fire within, for light?

 We grew in age- and love- together,
 Roaming the forest, and the wild;
 My breast her shield in wintry weather-
 And when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
 And she would mark the opening skies,
 I saw no Heaven- but in her eyes.

 Young Love's first lesson is- the heart:
 For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
 When, from our little cares apart,
 And laughing at her girlish wiles,
 I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
 And pour my spirit out in tears-
 There was no need to speak the rest-
 No need to quiet any fears
 Of her- who ask'd no reason why,
 But turn'd on me her quiet eye!

 Yet more than worthy of the love
 My spirit struggled with, and strove,
 When, on the mountain peak, alone,
 Ambition lent it a new tone-
 I had no being- but in thee:
 The world, and all it did contain
 In the earth- the air- the sea-
 Its joy- its little lot of pain
 That was new pleasure- the ideal,
 Dim vanities of dreams by night-

 And dimmer nothings which were real-
 (Shadows- and a more shadowy light!)
 Parted upon their misty wings,
 And, so, confusedly, became
 Thine image, and- a name- a name!
 Two separate- yet most intimate things.

 I was ambitious- have you known
 The passion, father? You have not:
 A cottager, I mark'd a throne
 Of half the world as all my own,
 And murmur'd at such lowly lot-
 But, just like any other dream,
 Upon the vapour of the dew
 My own had past, did not the beam
 Of beauty which did while it thro'
 The minute- the hour- the day- oppress
 My mind with double loveliness.

 We walk'd together on the crown
 Of a high mountain which look'd down
 Afar from its proud natural towers
 Of rock and forest, on the hills-
 The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers,
 And shouting with a thousand rills.

 I spoke to her of power and pride,
 But mystically- in such guise
 That she might deem it nought beside
 The moment's converse; in her eyes
 I read, perhaps too carelessly-
 A mingled feeling with my own-
 The flush on her bright cheek, to me
 Seem'd to become a queenly throne
 Too well that I should let it be
 Light in the wilderness alone.

 I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
 And donn'd a visionary crown-
 Yet it was not that Fantasy
 Had thrown her mantle over me-
 But that, among the rabble- men,
 Lion ambition is chained down-
 And crouches to a keeper's hand-
 Not so in deserts where the grand-
 The wild- the terrible conspire
 With their own breath to fan his fire.

 Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!
 Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
 Above all cities? in her hand
 Their destinies? in all beside
 Of glory which the world hath known
 Stands she not nobly and alone?
 Falling- her veriest stepping-stone
 Shall form the pedestal of a throne-
 And who her sovereign? Timour- he
 Whom the astonished people saw
 Striding o'er empires haughtily
 A diadem'd outlaw!

 O, human love! thou spirit given
 On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
 Which fall'st into the soul like rain
 Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
 And, failing in thy power to bless,
 But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
 Idea! which bindest life around
 With music of so strange a sound,
 And beauty of so wild a birth-
 Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

 When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
 No cliff beyond him in the sky,
 His pinions were bent droopingly-
 And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.
 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part
 There comes a sullenness of heart
 To him who still would look upon
 The glory of the summer sun.
 That soul will hate the ev'ning mist,
 So often lovely, and will list
 To the sound of the coming darkness (known
 To those whose spirits hearken) as one
 Who, in a dream of night, would fly
 But cannot from a danger nigh.

 What tho' the moon- the white moon
 Shed all the splendour of her noon,
 Her smile is chilly, and her beam,
 In that time of dreariness, will seem
 (So like you gather in your breath)
 A portrait taken after death.
 And boyhood is a summer sun
 Whose waning is the dreariest one-
 For all we live to know is known,
 And all we seek to keep hath flown-
 Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
 With the noon-day beauty- which is all.

 I reach'd my home- my home no more
 For all had flown who made it so.
 I pass'd from out its mossy door,
 And, tho' my tread was soft and low,
 A voice came from the threshold stone
 Of one whom I had earlier known-
 O, I defy thee, Hell, to show
 On beds of fire that burn below,
 A humbler heart- a deeper woe.

 Father, I firmly do believe-
 I know- for Death, who comes for me
 From regions of the blest afar,
 Where there is nothing to deceive,
 Hath left his iron gate ajar,
 And rays of truth you cannot see
 Are flashing thro' Eternity-
 I do believe that Eblis hath
 A snare in every human path-
 Else how, when in the holy grove
 I wandered of the idol, Love,
 Who daily scents his snowy wings
 With incense of burnt offerings
 From the most unpolluted things,
 Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
 Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven,
 No mote may shun- no tiniest fly-
 The lightning of his eagle eye-
 How was it that Ambition crept,
 Unseen, amid the revels there,
 Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
 In the tangles of Love's very hair?
 
 
 

To F...

 Beloved! amid the earnest woes
 That crowd around my earthly path-
 (Drear path, alas! where grows
 Not even one lonely rose)-
 My soul at least a solace hath
 In dreams of thee, and therein knows
 An Eden of bland repose.

 And thus thy memory is to me
 Like some enchanted far-off isle
 In some tumultuous sea-
 Some ocean throbbing far and free
 With storms- but where meanwhile
 Serenest skies continually
 Just o'er that one bright island smile.
 
 
 
To F--s
S. O--d

 Thou wouldst be loved?- then let thy heart
 From its present pathway part not!
 Being everything which now thou art,
 Be nothing which thou art not.
 So with the world thy gentle ways,
 Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
 Shall be an endless theme of praise,
 And love- a simple duty.
 
 
 

To Helen

 Helen, thy beauty is to me
 Like those Nicean barks of yore,
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
 The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
 To his own native shore.

 On desperate seas long wont to roam,
 Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
 Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
 To the glory that was Greece
 And the grandeur that was Rome.

 Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
 How statue-like I see thee stand,
 The agate lamp within thy hand!
 Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
 Are Holy Land!


 I saw thee once- once only- years ago:
 I must not say how many- but not many.
 It was a July midnight; and from out
 A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
 Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
 There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
 With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
 Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
 Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
 Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
 That gave out, in return for the love-light,
 Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
 That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
 By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

 Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
 I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
 And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow!

 Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
 Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
 That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
 To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
 No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
 Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!- oh, God!
 How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
 Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked-
 And in an instant all things disappeared.
 (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

 The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
 The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
 The happy flowers and the repining trees,
 Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
 Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
 All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
 Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
 Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
 I saw but them- they were the world to me!
 I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
 Saw only them until the moon went down.
 What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
 Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
 How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
 How silently serene a sea of pride!
 How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
 How fathomless a capacity for love!

 But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
 Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
 And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
 Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
 They would not go- they never yet have gone;
 Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
 They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
 They follow me- they lead me through the years.
 They are my ministers- yet I their slave.
 Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
 My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
 And purified in their electric fire,
 And sanctified in their elysian fire.
 They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
 And are far up in Heaven- the stars I kneel to
 In the sad, silent watches of my night;
 While even in the meridian glare of day
 I see them still- two sweetly scintillant
 Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
 
 
 

To M...

 O! I care not that my earthly lot
 Hath little of Earth in it,
 That years of love have been forgot
 In the fever of a minute:

 I heed not that the desolate
 Are happier, sweet, than I,
 But that you meddle with my fate
 Who am a passer by.

 It is not that my founts of bliss
 Are gushing- strange! with tears-
 Or that the thrill of a single kiss
 Hath palsied many years-

 'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
 Which have wither'd as they rose
 Lie dead on my heart-strings
 With the weight of an age of snows.

 Not that the grass- O! may it thrive!
 On my grave is growing or grown-
 But that, while I am dead yet alive
 I cannot be, lady, alone.
 
 
 
To Marie
Louise (Shew)

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning -
Of all to whom thine absence is the night -
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun - of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope - for life - ah, above all,
For the resurrection of deep buried faith
In truth, in virtue, in humanity -
Of all who, on despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes -
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship, - oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him -
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel's.
 
 
 

To My
Mother

 Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
 The angels, whispering to one another,
 Can find, among their burning terms of love,
 None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
 Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-
 You who are more than mother unto me,
 And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
 In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
 My mother- my own mother, who died early,
 Was but the mother of myself; but you
 Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
 And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
 By that infinity with which my wife
 Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
 
 
 

To One
in Paradise

 Thou wast all that to me, love,
 For which my soul did pine-
 A green isle in the sea, love,
 A fountain and a shrine,
 All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
 And all the flowers were mine.

 Ah, dream too bright to last!
 Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
 But to be overcast!
 A voice from out the Future cries,
 "On! on!"- but o'er the Past
 (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
 Mute, motionless, aghast!

 For, alas! alas! me
 The light of Life is o'er!
 "No more- no more- no more-"
 (Such language holds the solemn sea
 To the sands upon the shore)
 Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
 Or the stricken eagle soar!

 And all my days are trances,
 And all my nightly dreams
 Are where thy grey eye glances,
 And where thy footstep gleams-
 In what ethereal dances,
 By what eternal streams.
 
 
 

To the
River

 Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
 Of crystal, wandering water,
 Thou art an emblem of the glow
 Of beauty- the unhidden heart-
 The playful maziness of art
 In old Alberto's daughter;

 But when within thy wave she looks-
 Which glistens then, and trembles-
 Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
 Her worshipper resembles;
 For in his heart, as in thy stream,
 Her image deeply lies-
 His heart which trembles at the beam
 Of her soul-searching eyes.
 
 
 

To Zante

 Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
 Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
 How many memories of what radiant hours
 At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
 How many scenes of what departed bliss!
 How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
 How many visions of a maiden that is
 No more- no more upon thy verdant slopes!
 No more! alas, that magical sad sound
 Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more-
 Thy memory no more! Accursed ground
 Henceforth I hold thy flower-enameled shore,
 O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
 "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

 
 
 
To...

 Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
 In the mad pride of intellectuality,
 Maintained "the power of words"- denied that ever
 A thought arose within the human brain
 Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
 And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
 Two words- two foreign soft dissyllables-
 Italian tones, made only to be murmured
 By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew
 That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"
 Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
 Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
 Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
 Than even seraph harper, Israfel,
 (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,")
 Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
 The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
 With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
 I cannot write- I cannot speak or think-
 Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling,
 This standing motionless upon the golden
 Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams.
 Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
 And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
 Upon the left, and all the way along,
 Amid empurpled vapors, far away
 To where the prospect terminates- thee only.
 
 
 

To...

 The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
 The wantonest singing birds,
 Are lips- and all thy melody
 Of lip-begotten words-

 Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined,
 Then desolately fall,
 O God! on my funereal mind
 Like starlight on a pall-

 Thy heart- thy heart!- I wake and sigh,
 And sleep to dream till day
 Of the truth that gold can never buy-
 Of the baubles that it may.
 
 
 

Ulalume

 The skies they were ashen and sober;
 The leaves they were crisped and sere-
 The leaves they were withering and sere;
 It was night in the lonesome October
 Of my most immemorial year;
 It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
 In the misty mid region of Weir-
 It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
 In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

 Here once, through an alley Titanic,
 Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul-
 Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
 There were days when my heart was volcanic
 As the scoriac rivers that roll-
 As the lavas that restlessly roll
 Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
 In the ultimate climes of the pole-
 That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
 In the realms of the boreal pole.

 Our talk had been serious and sober,
 But our thoughts they were palsied and sere-
 Our memories were treacherous and sere-
 For we knew not the month was October,
 And we marked not the night of the year-
 (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
 We noted not the dim lake of Auber-
 (Though once we had journeyed down here),
 Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
 Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

 And now, as the night was senescent,
 And star-dials pointed to morn-
 As the star-dials hinted of morn-
 At the end of our path a liquescent
 And nebulous lustre was born,
 Out of which a miraculous crescent
 Arose with a duplicate horn-
 Astarte's bediamonded crescent
 Distinct with its duplicate horn.

 And I said- "She is warmer than Dian:
 She rolls through an ether of sighs-
 She revels in a region of sighs:
 She has seen that the tears are not dry on
 These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
 And has come past the stars of the Lion,
 To point us the path to the skies-
 To the Lethean peace of the skies-
 Come up, in despite of the Lion,
 To shine on us with her bright eyes-
 Come up through the lair of the Lion,
 With love in her luminous eyes."

 But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
 Said- "Sadly this star I mistrust-
 Her pallor I strangely mistrust:-
 Oh, hasten!- oh, let us not linger!
 Oh, fly!- let us fly!- for we must."
 In terror she spoke, letting sink her
 Wings until they trailed in the dust-
 In agony sobbed, letting sink her
 Plumes till they trailed in the dust-
 Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

 I replied- "This is nothing but dreaming:
 Let us on by this tremulous light!
 Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
 Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
 With Hope and in Beauty to-night:-
 See!- it flickers up the sky through the night!
 Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
 And be sure it will lead us aright-
 We safely may trust to a gleaming
 That cannot but guide us aright,
 Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

 Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
 And tempted her out of her gloom-
 And conquered her scruples and gloom;
 And we passed to the end of the vista,
 But were stopped by the door of a tomb-
 By the door of a legended tomb;
 And I said- "What is written, sweet sister,
 On the door of this legended tomb?"
 She replied- "Ulalume- Ulalume-
 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

 Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
 As the leaves that were crisped and sere-
 As the leaves that were withering and sere-
 And I cried- "It was surely October
 On this very night of last year
 That I journeyed- I journeyed down here-
 That I brought a dread burden down here-
 On this night of all nights in the year,
 Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
 Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber-
 This misty mid region of Weir-
 Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
 This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
 
 
 

A Valentine

 For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
 Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
 Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
 Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
 Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
 Divine- a talisman- an amulet
 That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
 The words- the syllables! Do not forget
 The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
 And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
 Which one might not undo without a sabre,
 If one could merely comprehend the plot.
 Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
 Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
 Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
 Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
 Its letters, although naturally lying
 Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
 Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
 You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

 
 
 
The Valley
of Unrest

 Once it smiled a silent dell
 Where the people did not dwell;
 They had gone unto the wars,
 Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
 Nightly, from their azure towers,
 To keep watch above the flowers,
 In the midst of which all day
 The red sunlight lazily lay.
 Now each visitor shall confess
 The sad valley's restlessness.
 Nothing there is motionless-
 Nothing save the airs that brood
 Over the magic solitude.
 Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
 That palpitate like the chill seas
 Around the misty Hebrides!
 Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
 That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
 Uneasily, from morn till even,
 Over the violets there that lie
 In myriad types of the human eye-
 Over the lilies there that wave
 And weep above a nameless grave!
 They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
 Eternal dews come down in drops.
 They weep:- from off their delicate stems
 Perennial tears descend in gems.