The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 5 Read online

  1831.

  THE LAKE ---- TO----

  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.

  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.

  "THE HAPPIEST DAY."

  I

  THE happiest day-the happiest hour My seared 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.

  III

  And pride, what have I now with thee? Another brow may ev'n inherit The venom thou hast poured on me Be still my spirit!

  IV

  The happiest day-the happiest hour Mine eyes shall see-have ever seen The brightest glance of pride and power I feet have been:

  V

  But were that hope of pride and power Now offered with the pain Ev'n _then I _felt-that brightest hour I would not live again:

  VI

  For on its wing was dark alloy And as it fluttered-fell An essence-powerful to destroy A soul that knew it well.

  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. 1827.

  HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS

  Translation from the Greek

  I

  WREATHED in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal Like those champions devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave.

  II

  Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home Where Achilles and Diomed rest

  III

  In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine, Like Harmodius, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine A libation of Tyranny's blood.

  IV

  Ye deliverers of Athens from shame! Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs! Endless ages shall cherish your fame, Embalmed in their echoing songs!

  1827.

  DREAMS

  Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awak'ning, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow: Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, 'Twere better than the dull reality Of waking life to him whose heart shall be, And hath been ever, on the chilly 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 In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light, And left unheedingly 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 & _only_ once & the wild hour From my rememberance shall not pass--some power Or spell had bound me--'twas the chilly wind Came o'er me in the night & 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--& 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 & Love--& all our own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

  {From an earlier MS. Than in the book--ED.}

  "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!_

  I

  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.

  II

  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

  IV

  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.

  * Query "fervor"?--ED.

  A PAEAN.

  I.

  How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung? The requiem for the loveliest dead, That ever died so young?

  II.

  Her friends are gazing on her, And on her gaudy bier,
And weep!--oh! to dishonor Dead beauty with a tear!

  III.

  They loved her for her wealth-- And they hated her for her pride-- But she grew in feeble health, And they _love_ her--that she died.

  IV.

  They tell me (while they speak Of her "costly broider'd pall") That my voice is growing weak-- That I should not sing at all--

  V.

  Or that my tone should be Tun'd to such solemn song So mournfully--so mournfully, That the dead may feel no wrong.

  VI.

  But she is gone above, With young Hope at her side, And I am drunk with love Of the dead, who is my bride.--

  VII.

  Of the dead--dead who lies All perfum'd there, With the death upon her eyes, And the life upon her hair.

  VIII.

  Thus on the coffin loud and long I strike--the murmur sent Through the grey chambers to my song, Shall be the accompaniment.

  IX.

  Thou died'st in thy life's June-- But thou did'st not die too fair: Thou did'st not die too soon, Nor with too calm an air.

  X.

  From more than fiends on earth, Thy life and love are riven, To join the untainted mirth Of more than thrones in heaven--

  XII.

  Therefore, to thee this night I will no requiem raise, But waft thee on thy flight, With a Paean of old days.

  NOTES

  30. On the "Poems written in Youth" little comment is needed. Thissection includes the pieces printed for first volume of 1827 (which wassubsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second publishedvolumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revisedversions, and a few others collected from various sources. "Al Aaraaf"first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in 1829,and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for1831, however, this poem, its author's longest, was introduced by thefollowing twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in--all subsequentcollections:

  AL AARAAF

  Mysterious star! Thou wert my dream All a long summer night-- Be now my theme! By this clear stream, Of thee will I write; Meantime from afar Bathe me in light I

  Thy world has not the dross of ours, Yet all the beauty-all the flowers That list our love or deck our bowers In dreamy gardens, where do lie Dreamy maidens all the day; While the silver winds of Circassy On violet couches faint away. Little--oh "little dwells in thee" Like unto what on earth we see: Beauty's eye is here the bluest In the falsest and untruest--On the sweetest air doth float The most sad and solemn note--

  If with thee be broken hearts, Joy so peacefully departs, That its echo still doth dwell, Like the murmur in the shell. Thou! thy truest type of grief Is the gently falling leaf! Thy framing is so holy Sorrow is not melancholy.

  31. The earliest version of "Tamerlane" was included in the suppressedvolume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as nowpublished. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations andimprovements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, thelines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye atleast.

  32. "To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also "TheValley of Unrest" (as "The Valley Nis"), "Israfel," and one or twoothers of the youthful pieces. The poem styled "Romance," constitutedthe Preface of the 1829 volume, but with the addition of the followinglines:

  Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then rolled like tropic storms along, Where, through the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky, Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven, That very blackness yet doth Ring Light on the lightning's silver wing.

  For being an idle boy lang syne; Who read Anacreon and drank wine, I early found Anacreon rhymes Were almost passionate sometimes-- And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turned to pain-- His naivete to wild desire-- His wit to love-his wine to fire-- And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy,

  And used to throw my earthly rest And quiet all away in jest-- I could not love except where Death Was mingling his with Beauty's breath-- Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny, Were stalking between her and me.

  *****

  But now my soul hath too much room-- Gone are the glory and the gloom-- The black hath mellow'd into gray, And all the fires are fading away.

  My draught of passion hath been deep-- I revell'd, and I now would sleep And after drunkenness of soul Succeeds the glories of the bowl An idle longing night and day To dream my very life away.

  But dreams--of those who dream as I, Aspiringly, are damned, and die: Yet should I swear I mean alone, By notes so very shrilly blown, To break upon Time's monotone, While yet my vapid joy and grief Are tintless of the yellow leaf-- Why not an imp the graybeard hath, Will shake his shadow in my path-- And e'en the graybeard will o'erlook Connivingly my dreaming-book.

  DOUBTFUL POEMS

  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 lov'd--_I_ lov'd alone-- _Then_--in my childhood--in the dawn Of a most stormy life--was drawn From ev'ry 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 roll'd In its autumn tint of gold-- From the lightning in the sky As it pass'd 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--

  {This poem is no longer considered doubtful as it was in 1903. Libertyhas been taken to replace the book version with an earlier, perhaps moreoriginal manuscript version--Ed}

  TO ISADORE

  I

  BENEATH the vine-clad eaves, Whose shadows fall before Thy lowly cottage door Under the lilac's tremulous leaves-- Within thy snowy claspeed hand The purple flowers it bore.. Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand, Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land-- Enchantress of the flowery wand, Most beauteous Isadore!

  II

  And when I bade the dream Upon thy spirit flee, Thy violet eyes to me Upturned, did overflowing seem With the deep, untold delight Of Love's serenity; Thy classic brow, like lilies white And pale as the Imperial Night Upon her throne, with stars bedight, Enthralled my soul to thee!

  III

  Ah I ever I behold Thy dreamy, passionate eyes, Blue as the languid skies

  Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold; Now strangely clear thine image grows, And olden memories Are startled from their long repose Like shadows on the silent snows When suddenly the night-wind blows Where quiet moonlight ties.

  IV

  Like music heard in dreams, Like strains of harps unknown, Of birds forever flown Audible as the voice of streams That murmur in some leafy dell, I hear thy gentlest tone, And Silence cometh with her spell Like that which on my tongue doth dwell, When tremulous in dreams I tell My love to thee alone!

 
V

  In every valley heard, Floating from tree to tree, Less beautiful to, me, The music of the radiant bird, Than artless accents such as thine Whose echoes never flee! Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:-- For uttered in thy tones benign (Enchantress!) this rude name of mine