In some tumultuos sea --
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storms -- but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o're that one bright island smile.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD
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.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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!'
1849.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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!
And never a flake
That the vapour 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,
Astarté within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye -
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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?.
1849
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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 the 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.
1847.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
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 wider, far diviner visions
Than even the 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 can not write-I can not speak or think--
Alas, I can not 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!_
1848.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE CITY IN THE SEA.
Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Wherethe 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 scultured 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 thrown 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.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE SLEEPER.
At midnight in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapour, 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 univeral valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders 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
(Her easement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, 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 sould lies hid,
That o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thous no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come p'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
Forever with unopened eye,
While the dim 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 hath flung its black
And winged pannels 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 fromout 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.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
BRIDAL BALLAD.
THE ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins 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-asure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o're 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,
Behold the golden token
That _proves_ me 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.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
NOTES
1. "The Raven" was first published on the 29th January, 1845, in the New
York "Evening Mirror"-a paper its author was then assistant editor of. It
was prefaced by the following words, understood to have been written by N.
P. Willis:"We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the
second number of the "American Review," the following remarkable poem by
Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of
'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in
English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification,
and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' It is
one of those 'dainties bred in a book' which we feed on. It will stick to
the memory of everybody who reads it." In the February number of the
"American Review" the poem was published as by "Quarles," and it was
introduced by the following note, evidently suggested if not written by
Poe himself.
["The following lines from a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain
of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches
amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the
author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique
rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English
rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing
corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much
more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the classic
tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by power of accent, several
advantages for versification over our own, chiefly through greater
abundance of spondaic: feet, we have other and very great advantages of
sound by the modern usage of rhyme. Alliteration is nearly the only effect
of that kind which the ancients had in common with us. It will be seen
that much of the melody of 'The Raven' arise
s from alliteration, and the
studious use of similar sounds in unusual places. In regard to its
measure, it may be noted that if all the verses were like the second, they
might properly be placed merely in short lines, producing a not uncommon
form; but the presence in all the others of one line-mostly the second in
the verse" (stanza?) --"which flows continuously, with only an aspirate
pause in the middle, like that before the short line in the Sapphic
Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of sound
with any part besides, gives the versification an entirely different
effect. We could wish the capacities of our noble language in prosody were
better understood." --ED. "Am. Rev."
2. The bibliographical history of "The Bells" is curious. The subject, and
some lines of the original version, having been suggested by the poet's
friend, Mrs. Shew, Poe, when he wrote out the first draft of the poem,
headed it, "The Bells, By Mrs. M. A. Shew." This draft, now the editor's
property, consists of only seventeen lines, and read thus:
I.
The bells!-ah, the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats--
From their merry little throats--
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells!
II.
The bells!-ah, the bells !
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats--
From their deep-toned throats--
From their melancholy throats!
How I shudder at the notes Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells !
In the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this poem, and sent it to
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 166