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 nevermore!
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 innocence 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 no 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! avaunt! 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!
Let no bell toll, then,--lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!--to-night my heart is light!--no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"

An Enigma

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,

"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.

Through all the flimsy things we see at once

As easily as through a Naples bonnet—

Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it?

Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff—

Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff

Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."

And, veritably, Sol is right enough.

The general tuckermanities are arrant

Bubbles—ephemeral and so transparent—

But this is, now—you may depend upon it—

Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dint

Of the dear names that lie concealed within't.

Ulalume

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 Wier.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,

Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--

Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

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 groans as they roll down Mount Yaanek

In the realms of the Boreal Pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--

Our memories were treacherous and sere--

For we knew not the month was October,

And we marked not the night of the year--

(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)

We noted not the dim lake of Auber,

(Though once we had journeyed down here)

Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent

And star-dials pointed to morn--

As the star-dials hinted of morn--

At the end of our path a liquescent

And nebulous luster was born.

Out of which a miraculous crescent

Arose with a duplicate horn--

Astarte's bediamonded crescent

Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said--"She is warmer than Dian;

She rolls through an ether of sighs--

She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on

These cheeks, where the worm never dies,

And has come past the stars of the Lion

To point us the path of the skies--

To the Lethean peace of the skies--

Come up, in despite of the Lion,

To shine on us with her bright eyes--

Come up through the lair of the Lion,

With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,

Said--"Sadly this star I mistrust--

Her pallor I strangely mistrust--

Oh, hasten!--oh, let us not linger!

Oh, fly!--let us fly!--for we must."

In terror she spoke, letting sink her

Wings till they trailed in the dust--

In agony sobbed, letting sink her

Plumes till they trailed in the dust--

Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied--"This is nothing but dreaming:

Let us on by this tremulous light!

Let us bathe in this crystalline light!

Its sybillic splendor is beaming

With Hope and in Beauty to-night:--

See! it flickers up the sky through the night!

Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,

And be sure it will lead us aright:

We safely may trust to a gleaming

That cannot but guide us aright,

Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,

And tempted her out of her gloom--

And conquered her scruples and gloom;

And we passed to the end of a vista,

But were stopped by the door of a tomb--

By the door of a legended tomb;

And I said--"What is written, sweet sister,

On the door of this legended tomb?"

She replied--"Ulalume--Ulalume!--

'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves that were crispèd and sere--

As the leaves that were withering and sere;

And I cried--"It was surely October

On this very night of last year

That I journeyed--I journeyed down here--

That I brought a dread burden down here!

On this night of all nights in the year,

Ah, what demon has tempted me here?

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--

This misty mid region of Weir--

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber--

This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies

Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure

Divine—a talisman—an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—

The words—the syllables! Do not forget

The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.

Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus

Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets by poets—as the name is a poet's, too.

Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—

Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease trying!

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

Annabel lee

 
It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;--

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love--

I and my Annabel Lee--

With a love that the wingèd seraphs in Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wing blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her high-born kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulcher

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me:--

Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud, by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we--

Of many far wiser than we--

And neither the angels in Heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling,--my darling,--my life and my bride,

In the sepulcher there by the sea--

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then--in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.