the editor of the "Union Magazine." It was not published. So, in the
following February, the poet forwarded to the same periodical a much
enlarged and altered transcript. Three months having elapsed without
publication, another revision of the poem, similar to the current version,
was sent, and in the following October was published in the "Union
Magazine."
3. This poem was first published in Colton's "American Review" for
December, 1847, as "To - Ulalume: a Ballad." Being reprinted immediately
in the "Home Journal," it was copied into various publications with the
name of the editor, N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to him. When
first published, it contained the following additional stanza which Poe
subsequently, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, wisely suppressed:
Said we then-we two, tben-"Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls--
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls--
To bar up our path and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds--
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls--
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"
4. "To Helen!' (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was not published until November,
1848, although written several months earlier. It first appeared in the
"Union Magazine," and with the omission, contrary to the knowledge or
desire of Poe, of the line, "Oh, Godl oh, Heaven-how my heart beats in
coupling those two words."
5. "Annabel Lee" was written early in 1849, and is evidently an expression
of the poet's undying love for his deceased bride, although at least one
of his lady admirers deemed it a response to her admiration. Poe sent a
copy of the ballad to the "Union Magazine," in which publication it
appeared in January, 1850, three months after the author's death. While
suffering from "hope deferred" as to its fate, Poe presented a copy of
"Annabel Lee" to the editor of the "Southern Literary Messenger," who
published it in the November number of his periodical, a month after Poe's
death. In the meantime the poet's own copy, left among his papers, passed
into the hands of the person engaged to edit his works, and he quoted the
poem in an obituary of Poe, in the New York "Tribune," before any one else
had an opportunity of publishing it.
6. "A Valentine," one of three poems addressed to Mrs. Osgood, appears to
have been written early in 1846.
7. "An Enigma," addressed to Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewis ("Stella"), was sent to
that lady in a letter, in November, 1847, and the following March appeared
in Sartain's "Union Magazine."
8. The sonnet, "To My Mother" (Maria Clemm), was sent for publication to
the short-lived "Flag of our Union," early in 1849,' but does not appear
to have been issued until after its author's death, when it appeared in
the "Leaflets of Memory" for 1850.
9. "For Annie" was first published in the "Flag of our Union," in the
spring of 1849. Poe, annoyed at some misprints in this issue, shortly
afterwards caused a corrected copy to be inserted in the "Home Journal."
10. "To F-- --" (Frances Sargeant Osgood) appeared in the "Broadway
journal" for April, 1845. These lines are but slightly varied from those
inscribed "To Mary," in the "Southern Literary Messenger" for July, 1835,
and subsequently republished, with the two stanzas transposed, in
"Graham's Magazine" for March, 1842, as "To One Departed."
11. "To F-- --s S. O--d," a portion of the poet's triune tribute to Mrs.
Osgood, was published in the "Broadway Journal" for September, 1845. The
earliest version of these lines appeared in the "Southern Literary
Messenger" for September, 1835, as "Lines written in an Album," and was
addressed to Eliza White, the proprietor's daughter. Slightly revised, the
poem reappeared in Burton's "Gentleman's Magazine" for August, 1839, as
"To--."
12. Although "Eldorado" was published during Poe's lifetime, in 1849, in
the "Flag of our Union," it does not appear to have ever received the
author's finishing touches.
======
End of Poems of Later Life
POEMS OF MANHOOD
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 never more!
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 innocent 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 so 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! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
"But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!
"Let no bell toll! - lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
"Should catch the note, as it doth float - up from the damned Earth.
"To friends above, 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."
~~ ~~~End of Text
======
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 shrime,
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 guld!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, mothionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with 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 thunder0blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams --
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
1835.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE COLISEUM.
&nbs
p; 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 Judæan 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 wanlight
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls - these ivy-clad arcades -
These mouldering plinths - these sad and blackened shafts -
These vague entablatures - this crumbling frieze -
These shattered cornices - this wreck - this ruin -
These stones - alas! these gray 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."
1833.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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 odour 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 sorrow
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, lie a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh -- but smile no more.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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 Wo !
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 the angels 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,
And the angels,all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
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!
1840.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
DREAM-LAND
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 weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE - out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titian woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews 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;
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 167