Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

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Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Page 7

by Edgar Allan Poe; Benjamin F. Fisher


  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.

  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—e

  Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

  Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—

  Up many and many a marvellous shrine

  Whose wreathèd 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 Judæan king

  Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!

  O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee

  Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!f

  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 hornéd moon,

  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.g

  “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.”

  Sonnet—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!

  Dream-Land

  By a route obscure and lonely,

  Haunted by ill angels only,

  Where an Eidolon,h named NIGHT,

  On a black throne reigns upright,

  I have reached these lands but newly

  From an ultimate dim Thule—i

  From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,

  Out of SPACE—out of TIME.

  Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

  And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,j

  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,—k

  By each spot the most unhol
y—

  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!l

  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.

  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 visiter,” 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 ghostm upon the floor.

  Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

  From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore4—

  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 visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—

  Some late visiter 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 something 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 Pallas5 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!”n

  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 blessed 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 that placid bust, spoke only

  That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

  Nothing farther 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 sad soul 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 lamp-light gloated o‘er,

  But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er

  She shall press, ah, nevermore!

  Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen

  censer

  Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

  “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath

  sent thee

  Respite—respite and nepentheo 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?p—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,q

  It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

  Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom t
he angels name Lenore.”

  Quoth the Raven, “ Nevermore.”

  “Be that word our sign of 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 lamp-light 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!

  Ulalume: A Ballad

  The skies they were ashen and sober;

  The leaves they were crispèd 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.6

  Here once, through an alley Titanic,

  Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—

  Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul7

  These 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.8

  Our talk had been serious and sober,

 

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