Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe pdf Edgar Allan Poe Free Download

Poe left Boston in October of that year.”

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

THE greater part of the Poems which compose this little volume were written in the year 1821-2, when the author had not completed his fourteenth year. They were of course not intended for publication; why they are now published concerns no one but himself. Of the smaller pieces very little need be said: they perhaps savour too much of egotism; but they were written by one too young to have any knowledge of the world but from his own breast.

In “Tamerlane” he has endeavoured to expose the folly of even risking the best feelings of the heart at the shrine of Ambition. He is conscious that in this there are many faults (besides that of the general character of the poem), which he flatters himself he could, with little trouble, have corrected, but unlike many of his predecessors, has been too fond of his early productions to amend them in his old age.

He will not say that he is indifferent as to the success of these Poems — it might stimulate him to other attempts — but he can safely assert that failure will not at all influence him in a resolution already adopted. This is challenging criticism — let it be so. Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.

TAMERLANE (1827)

I HAVE sent for thee, holy friar;
But ‘twas not with the drunken hope,
Which is but agony of desire
To shun the fate, with which to cope
Is more than crime may dare to dream,
That I have call’d thee at this hour:
Such, father, is not my theme —
Nor am I mad, to deem that power
Of earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revelled in —
I would not call thee fool, old man.
But hope is not a gift of thine;
If I can hope (O God! I can)
It falls from an eternal shrine.

II.

The gay wall of this gaudy tower
Grows dim around me — death is near.
I had not thought, until this hour
When passing from the earth, that ear
Of any, were it not the shade
Of one whom in life I made
All mystery but a simple name,
Might know the secret of a spirit
Bow’d down in sorrow, and in shame. —
Shame, said’st thou?

Ay, I did inherit
That hated portion, with the fame,
The worldly glory, which has shown
A demon-light around my throne,
Scorching my sear’d heart with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again.

III.

I have not always been as now —
The fever’d diadem on my brow
I claim’d and won usurpingly —
Ay — the same heritage hath given
Rome to the Cæsar — this to me;
The heirdom of a kingly mind —
And a proud spirit, which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.

In mountain air I first drew life;
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews on my young head;
And my brain drank their venom then,
When after day of perilous strife
With chamois, I would seize his den
And slumber, in my pride of power,
The infant monarch of the hour —
For, with the mountain dew by night,
My soul imbibed unhallow’d feeling;
And I would feel its essence stealing
In dreams upon me — while the light
Flashing from cloud that hover’d o’er,
Would seem to my half closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy!
And the deep thunder’s echoing roar
Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of war, and tumult, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child! was swelling
(O how would my wild heart rejoice
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle cry of victory!

*****

IV.

The rain came down upon my head
But barely shelter’d — and the wind
Pass’d quickly o’er me — but my mind
Was maddening — for ‘twas man that shed
Laurels upon me — and the rush,
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled in my pleased ear the crush
Of empires, with the captive’s prayer,
The hum of suitors, the mix’d tone
Of flattery round a sovereign’s throne.

The storm had ceased — and I awoke —
Its spirit cradled me to sleep,
And as it pass’d me by, there broke
Strange light upon me, tho’ it were
My soul in mystery to steep:
For I was not as I had been;
The child of Nature, without care,
Or thought, save of the passing scene. —

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 lived one who, then —
Then, in my boyhood, when their fire
Burn’d with a still intenser glow;
(For passion must with youth expire)
Even then, who deem’d 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 dare attempt to trace
The breathing beauty of a face,
Which even to my impassion’d mind,
Leaves not its memory behind.
In spring of life have ye ne’er dwelt
Some object of delight upon,
With steadfast eye, till ye have felt
The earth reel — and the vision gone?
And I have held to memory’s eye
One object — and but one — until
Its very form hath pass’d me by,
But left its influence with me stilL

VI.

’Tis not to thee that I should name —
Thou canst not — wouldst not dare to think
The magic empire of a flame
Which even upon this perilous brink
Hath fix’d my soul, tho’ unforgiven,
By what it lost for passion — Heaven.
I loved — and O, how tenderly!
Yes! she [was] worthy of all love!
Such as in infancy was mine,
Tho’ then its passion could not be:
‘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, without sin,
Pure as her young example taught;
Why did I leave it and adrift,
Trust to the fickle star within?

VII.

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 smiled
And she would mark the opening skies,
I saw no Heaven but in her eyes —
Even childhood knows the human heart;
For when, in sunshine and in smiles,
From all our little cares apart,
Laughing at her half silly wiles,
I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,
And pour my spirit out in tears,
She’d look up in my wilder’d eye —
There was no need to speak the rest —
No need to quiet her kind fears —
She did not ask the reason why.

The hallow’d memory of those years
Comes o’er me in these lonely hours,
And, with sweet loveliness, appears
As perfume of strange summer flowers;
Of flowers which we have known before
In infancy, which seen, recall
To mind — not flowers alone — but more,
Our earthly life, and love — and all.

VIII.

Yes! she was worthy of all love!
Even such as from the accursed time
My spirit with the tempest strove,
When on the mountain peak alone,
Ambition lent it a new tone,
And bade it first to dream of crime,
My frenzy to her bosom taught:
We still were young: no purer thought
Dwelt in a seraph’s breast than thine;
For passionate love is still divine:
I loved her as an angel might
With ray of the all living light
Which blazes upon Edis’ shrine.
It is not surely sin to name,
With such as mine — that mystic flame,
I had no being but in thee!
The world with all its train of bright
And happy beauty (for to me
All was an undefined delight),
The world — its joy — its share of pain
Which I felt not — its bodied forms
Of varied being, which contain
The bodiless spirits of the storms,
The sunshine, and the calm — the ideal
And fleeting vanities of dreams,
Fearfully beautiful! the real
Nothings of mid-day waking life —
Of an enchanted life, which seems,
Now as I look back, the strife
Of some ill demon, with a power
Which left me in an evil hour,
All that I felt, or saw, or thought,
Crowding, confused became
(With thine unearthly beauty fraught)
Thou — and the nothing of a name.

IX.

The passionate spirit which hath known,
And deeply felt the silent tone
Of its own self supremacy, —
(I speak thus openly to thee,
‘Twere folly now to veil a thought
With which this aching breast is fraught)
The soul which feels its innate right —
The mystic empire and high power
Given by the energetic might
Of Genius, at its natal hour;
Which knows (believe me at this time,
When falsehood were a tenfold crime,
There is a power in the high spirit
To know the fate it will inherit)
The soul, which knows such power, will still
Find Pride the ruler of its will.

Yes! I was proud — and ye who know
The magic of that meaning word,
So oft perverted, will bestow
Your scorn, perhaps, when ye have heard
That the proud spirit had been broken,
The proud heart burst in agony
At one upbraiding word or token
Of her that heart’s idolatry —
I was ambitious — have ye known
Its fiery passion? — ye 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 it had pass’d me as a dream
Which, of light step, flies with the dew,
That kindling thought — did not the beam
Of Beauty, which did guide it through
The livelong summer 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, whence amid bowers
Her own fair hand had rear’d around,
Gush’d shoutingly a thousand rills,
Which as it were, in fairy bound
Embraced two hamlets — those our own —
Peacefully happy — yet alone —

*****

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
A light in the dark wild, alone.

XI.

There — in that hour — a thought came o’er
My mind, it had not known before —
To leave her while we both were young, —
To follow my high fate among
The strife of nations, and redeem
The idle words, which, as a dream
Now sounded to her heedless ear —
I held no doubt — I knew no fear
Of peril in my wild career;
To gain an empire, and throw down
As nuptial dowry — a queen’s crown,
The only feeling which possest,
With her own image, my fond breast —
Who, that had known the secret thought
Of a young peasant’s bosom then,
Had deem’d him, in compassion, aught
But one, whom fantasy had led
Astray from reason — Among men
Ambition is chain’d down — nor fed
(As in the desert, where the grand,
The wild, the beautiful, conspire
With their own breath to fan its fire)
With thoughts such feeling can command;
Uncheck’d by sarcasm, and scorn
Of those, who hardly will conceive
That any should become “great,” born
In their own sphere — will not believe
That they shall stoop in life to one
Whom daily they are wont to see
Familiarly — whom Fortune’s sun
Hath ne’er shone dazzlingly upon,
Lowly — and of their own degree —

XII.

I pictured to my fancy’s eye
Her silent, deep astonishment,
When, a few fleeting years gone by,
(For short the time my high hope lent
To its most desperate intent,)
She might recall in him, whom Fame
Had gilded with a conqueror’s name,
(With glory — such as might inspire
Perforce, a passing thought of one,
Whom she had deemed in his own fire
Withered and blasted; who had gone
A traitor, violate of the truth
So plighted in his early youth,)
Her own Alexis, who should plight
The love he plighted then — again.
And raise his infancy’s delight.
The bride and queen of Tamerlane. —

XIII.

One noon of a bright summer’s day
I pass’d from out the matted bower
Where in a deep, still slumber lay
My Ada. In that peaceful hour,
A silent gaze was my farewell.
I had no other solace — then
To awake her, and a falsehood tell
Of a feign’d journey, were again
To trust the weakness of my heart
To her soft thrilling voice: To part
Thus, haply, while in sleep she dream’d
Of long delight, nor yet had deem’d
Awake, that I had held a thought
Of parting, were with madness fraught;
I knew not woman’s heart, alas!
Tho’ loved, and loving — let it pass. —

XIV.

I went from out the matted bower,
And hurried madly on my way:
And felt, with every flying hour,
That bore me from my home, more gay;
There is of earth an agony
Which, ideal, still may be
The worst ill of mortality.
‘Tis bliss, in its own reality,
Too real, to his breast who lives
Not within himself but gives
A portion of his willing soul
To God, and to the great whole —
To him, whose loving spirit will dwell
With Nature, in her wild paths; tell
Of her wondrous ways, and telling bless
Her overpowering loveliness!
A more than agony to him
Whose failing sight will grow dim
With its own living gaze upon
That loveliness around: the sun —
The blue sky — the misty light
Of the pale cloud therein, whose hue
Is grace to its heavenly bed of blue;
Dim! tho’ looking on all bright!
O God! when the thoughts that may not pass
Will burst upon him, and alas!
For the flight on Earth to Fancy given,
There are no words — unless of Heaven.

XV.

*****

Look round thee now on Samarcand,
Is she not queen of earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies? with all beside
Of glory, which the world hath known?
Stands she not proudly and alone?
And who her sovereign? Timur, he
Whom the astonish’d earth hath seen,
With victory, on victory,
Redoubling age! and more, I ween,
The Zinghis’ yet re-echoing fame.
And now what has he? what! a name.
The sound of revelry by night
Comes o’er me, with the mingled voice
Of many with a breast as light,
As if ‘twere not the dying hour
Of one, in whom they did rejoice —
As in a leader, haply — Power
Its venom secretly imparts;
Nothing have I with human hearts.

XVI.

When Fortune mark’d me for her own,
And my proud hopes had reach’d a throne
(It boots me not, good friar, to tell
A tale the world but knows too well,
How by what hidden deeds of might,
I clamber’d to the tottering height,)
I still was young; and well I ween
My spirit what it e’er had been.
My eyes were still on pomp and power,
My wilder’d heart was far away
In valleys of the wild Taglay,
In mine own Ada’s matted bower.
I dwelt not long in Samarcand
Ere, in a peasant’s lowly guise,
I sought my long-abandon’d land;
By sunset did its mountains rise
In dusky grandeur to my eyes:
But as I wander’d on the way
My heart sunk with the sun’s ray.
To him, who still would gaze upon
The glory of the summer sun,
There comes, when that sun will from him part,
A sullen hopelessness of heart.
That soul will hate the evening 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 though the moon — the silvery moon —
Shine on his path, in her high noon;
Her smile is chilly, and her beam
In that time of dreariness will seem
As the portrait of one after death;
A likeness taken when the breath
Of young life, and the fire o’ the eye,
Had lately been, but had pass’d by.
‘Tis thus when the lovely summer sun
Of our boyhood, his course hath run:
For all we live to know — is known;
And all we seek to keep — hath flown;
With the noon-day beauty, which is all.
Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall —
The transient, passionate day-flower,()
Withering at the evening hour.

XVII.

I reach’d my home — my home no more —
For all was flown that made it so —
I pass’d from out its mossy door,
In vacant idleness of woe.
There met me on its threshold stone
A mountain hunter, I had known
In childhood, but he knew me not.
Something he spoke of the old cot:
It had seen better days, he said;
There rose a fountain once, and there
Full many a fair flower raised its head:
But she who rear’d them was long dead,
And in such follies had no part,
What was there left me now? despair —
A kingdom for a broken — heart.

1829.

The character Ada was named after Lord Byron’s daughter, Ada Lovelace

FUGITIVE PIECES.

TO — —

SONG

I SAW thee on the bridal day,

When a burning blush came o’er thee,
Tho’ Happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee.

And, in thine eye, the kindling light
Of young passion free
Was all on earth, my chained sight
Of Loveliness might see.

That blush, I ween, was maiden shame;
As such it well may pass:
Tho’ 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,
Tho’ Happiness around thee lay;
The world all Love before thee. —

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 mine 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’ [but] in a dream.
I have been happy — and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid colouring 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.

VISIT OF THE DEAD.

THY soul shall find itself alone —
Alone of all on earth — unknown
The cause — but none are near 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 then o’ershadow thee — be still:
For the night, tho’ clear, shall frown;
And the stars shall look not down
From their thrones, in the dark heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given.
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy withering heart shall seem
As a burning, and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
But ‘twill leave thee, as each star
In the morning light afar
Will fly thee — and vanish:
— But its thought thou canst not banish.
The breath of God will be still;
And the mist upon the hill
By that summer breeze unbroken
Shall charm thee — as a token,
And a symbol which shall be
Secrecy in thee.

EVENING STAR.

   ‘TWAS noontide of summer,
      And midtime of night,
   And stars, in their orbits,
      Shone pale, through 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 passed, 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.

1827.

IMITATION.

A DARK unfathom’d 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 on 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 pass’d on:
I care not tho’ it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.

COMMUNION WITH NATURE

IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE

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

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 fervor-what had o’er it power.

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
    T’ awake us — ‘Tis a symbol and a token

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.

A WILDER’D BEING FROM MY BIRTH

A WILDER’D being from my birth,
My spirit spurn’d control,
But now, abroad on the wide earth.
Where wanderest thou, my soul?

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

And what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turn’d 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 tho’ that light, thro’ misty night
So dimly shone afar —
“What could there be more purely bright
In Truth’s day-star?

THE HAPPIEST DAY — THE HAPPIEST HOUR

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 vanished 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 LAKE.

IN spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth 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 tower’d 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.

1827.

AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE AND MINOR POEMS

Poe was discharged from the army on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him. John Allan agreed to support Poe’s new appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Before entering the Academy, Poe moved back to Baltimore to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm, his brother Henry and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe. It was at this time that Poe published this second collection of poems in Baltimore in 1829.

It is not known how many copies were printed, though an estimate of 500 or fewer are usually accepted by scholars. According to Poe’s letter to John Allan, the poet had been promised 250 copies of the book to sell for his own profit, though it is likely that Poe may have exaggerated this figure, which he had done in previous dealings. Fewer than 30 copies are known to exist today.

The first edition

CONTENTS

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?

AL AARAAF

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 –
A garden-spot 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 odours, 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 Albatross,
    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 mossy-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’ Arabesq’ carving of a gilded hall
    Wherein I sate, and on the drap’ried 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.

TAMERLANE (1829)

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 Cæsar — 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 vapor 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 chain’d 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 she not 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 harken) 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 splendor 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,
An humbler heart — a deeper wo.

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 light’ning 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?

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 air on high
With tumult, as they thunder by,
I hardly have had time for cares
Thro’ gazing on th’ 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
Did it not tremble with the strings!

TO — —

Should my early life seem,
[As well it might,] a dream —
Yet I build no faith upon
The king Napoleon —
I look not up afar
For my destiny in a star:

In parting from you now
Thus much I will avow —
There are beings, and have been
Whom my spirit had not seen
Had I let them pass me by
With a dreaming eye —
If my peace hath fled away
In a night — or in a day —
In a vision — or in none —
Is it therefore the less gone? —

I am standing ‘mid the roar
Of a weather-beaten shore,
And I hold within my hand
Some particles of sand —
How few! and how they creep
Thro’ my fingers to the deep!
My early hopes? no — they
Went gloriously away,
Like lightning from the sky
At once — and so will I.

So young? ah! no — not now —
Thou hast not seen my brow,
But they tell thee I am proud —
They lie — they lie aloud —
My bosom beats with shame
At the paltriness of name
With which they dare combine
A feeling such as mine —
Nor Stoic? I am not:
In the terror of my lot
I laugh to think how poor
That pleasure “to endure!”
What! shade of Zeno! — I!
Endure! — no — no — defy.

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.

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 enshrin’d
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 truth that gold can never buy —
Of the trifles that it may.

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 my heart, as in thy stream,
       Her image deeply lies —
   His heart which trembles at the beam
       Of her soul-searching eyes.

THE LAKE — TO — —

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.

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 then overshadow thee: be still.

For the night — tho’ clear — shall frown —
And the stars shall look not 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! —

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?

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 passerby.

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.

FAIRY-LAND (1829)

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 any thing —
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.

POEMS, 1831

Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830. In October of that year, John Allan married his second wife, Louisa Patterson. The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning the poet. Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely being court-martialed. He left for New York in February, which is when he had this third volume of poems published.

The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They were most likely expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had been writing about commanding officers. Printed by Elam Bliss of New York, it was labelled as Second Edition and included a page saying, “To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated.” The book includes revisions of the long poems Tamerlane and Al Aaraaf, but also six previously unpublished poems.