Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  A window of one circular diamond, there,

  Look'd out above into the purple air,

  * Some star which, from the ruin'd roof

  Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance, did fall. - _Milton._

  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 for Beauty's grave

  Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave -

  And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout

  That from his marble dwelling peeréd 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

  * Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, "Je connois bien

  l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines - mais un palais erigé au pied d'une

  chaine des rochers sterils - peut il être un chef d'œvure des arts !"

  [_Voila les arguments de M. Voltaire_.]

  † "Oh ! the wave" - Ula Degusi is the Turkish appellation; but, on its

  own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or Almotanah. There were undoubtedly

  more than two cities engluphed in the "dead sea." In the valley of Siddim

  were five - Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium

  mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed) - but the last is out of

  all reason.

  It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau,

  Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the

  vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At _any_

  season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the

  transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of

  many settlements in the space now usurped by the 'Asphaltites.'

  *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 paus'd 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 :

  * Eyraco - Chaldea.

  † I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the

  darkness as it stole over the horizon.

  ‡ Fairies use flowers for their charactery. - _Merry Wives of

  Windsor_. [William Shakespeare]

  " 'Neath 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, [in the original, this

  line is slightly out of alignment]

  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 !

  * In Scripture is this passage - "The sun shall not harm thee by day,

  nor the moon by night." It is perhaps not generally known that the moon,

  in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with

  the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently

  alludes.

  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 Albatross,

  Incumbent on night

  (As she on the air)

  To keep watch with delight

  On the harmony there ?

  Ligeia ! whatever

  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

  * The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.

  † I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now unable

  to obtain and quote from memory : - "The verie essence and, as it were,

  springe-heade, and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde

  which the trees of the forest do make when they growe."

  Are the music of things -

  But are modell'd, alas ! -

  Away, then my dearest,

  O ! hie thee away

  To 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,

  The musical number

  They slumber'
d to hear -

  For what can awaken

  An angel so soon

  * The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight.

  The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an

  appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or

  rather from Claud Halcro - in whose mouth I admired its effect :

  O ! were there an island,

  Tho' ever so wild

  Where woman might smile, and

  No man be beguil'd, &c.

  Whose sleep hath been taken

  Beneath the cold moon,

  As the spell which no slumber

  Of witchery may test,

  The rythmical 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 - ev'n 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 ecstacy 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 !

  * With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell, where

  men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even

  happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment.

  Un no rompido sueno -

  Un dia puro - allegre - libre

  Quiera -

  Libre de amor - de zelo -

  De odio - de esperanza - de rezelo. - _Luis Ponce de Leon_.

  Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which

  the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds,

  resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of Love and the

  buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures

  - the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as

  their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.

  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 wo)

  Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo -

  Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,

  And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.

  Here sate 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.

  "Iante, dearest, see ! how dim that ray !

  How lovely 'tis to look so far away !

  * There be tears of perfect moan

  Wept for thee in Helicon.- _Milton._

  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 eye-lids - 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 it 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 -

  * It was entire in 1687 - the most elevated spot in Athens.

  † Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows

  Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love. - _Marlowe._

  And greener fields than in yon world above,

  And women'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 Dædalion 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,

  * Pennon - for pinion. - _Milton_.

  We paus'd 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.

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  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!

  Th' 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,