By Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

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 wingëd seraphs of heaven     Coveted her and me.   And this was the reason that, long ago,     In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling     My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came     And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre     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 her sepulchre there by the sea,     In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Israfel

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.—KORAN.

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell   Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell   Of his voice, all mute.   Tottering above   In her highest noon,   The enamoured moon Blushes with love,   While, to listen, the red levin   (With the rapid Pleiads, even,   Which were seven)   Pauses in Heaven.   And they say (the starry choir   And the other listening things) That Israfeli’s fire Is owing to that lyre   By which he sits and sings, The trembling living wire   Of those unusual strings.   But the skies that angel trod,   Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love’s a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are   Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star.   Therefore thou art not wrong,   Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong,   Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily live, and long!   The ecstasies above   With thy burning measures suit: Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,   With the fervor of thy lute:   Well may the stars be mute!   Yes, Heaven is thine; but this   Is a world of sweets and sours;   Our flowers are merely—flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss   Is the sunshine of ours.   If I could dwell Where Israfel   Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well   A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell   From my lyre within the sky.

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 damnëd Earth! And I!—to-night my heart is light!—no dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!”

The Bells

I       HEAR the sledges with the bells,             Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!       How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,           In the icy air of night!       While the stars, that oversprinkle       All the heavens, seem to twinkle           With a crystalline delight;         Keeping time, time, time,         In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells       From the bells, bells, bells, bells,             Bells, bells, bells,—   From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.   II       Hear the mellow wedding bells,               Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!       Through the balmy air of night       How they ring out their delight!         From the molten-golden notes,             And all in tune,         What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats             On the moon!       Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!             How it swells!             How it dwells         On the Future! how it tells         Of the rapture that impels       To the swinging and the ringing         Of the bells, bells, bells,       Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,             Bells, bells, bells—   To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!   III       Hear the loud alarum bells,             Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!     In the startled ear of night     How they scream out their affright!       Too much horrified to speak,       They can only shriek, shriek,             Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,         Leaping higher, higher, higher,         With a desperate desire,       And a resolute endeavor       Now—now to sit or never,     By the side of the pale-faced moon.         Oh, the bells, bells, bells!         What a tale their terror tells             Of Despair!       How they clang, and clash, and roar!       What a horror they outpour   On the bosom of the palpitating air!         Yet the ear it fully knows,             By the twanging             And the clanging,         How the danger ebbs and flows;       Yet the ear distinctly tells,             In the jangling             And the wrangling,       How the danger sinks and swells,— By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells,               Of the bells,       Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,             Bells, bells, bells—   In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!   IV       Hear the tolling of the bells,             Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!       In the silence of the night       How we shiver with affright   At the melancholy menace of their tone!       For every sound that floats       From the rust within their throats             Is a groan.       And the people—ah, the people,       They that dwell up in the steeple,             All alone,       And who tolling, tolling, tolling,         In that muffled monotone,       Feel a glory in so rolling         On the human heart a stone—   They are neither man nor woman,   They are neither brute nor human,           They are Ghouls:       And their king it is who tolls;       And he rolls, rolls, rolls,               Rolls         A pæan from the bells;       And his merry bosom swells         With the pæan of the bells,       And he dances, and he yells:       Keeping time, time, time,       In a sort of Runic rhyme,         To the pæan of the bells,             Of the bells:       Keeping time, time, time,       In a sort of Runic rhyme,         To the throbbing of the bells,       Of the bells, bells, bells—         To the sobbing of the bells;       Keeping time, time, time,         As he knells, knells, knells,       In a happy Runic rhyme,         To the rolling of the bells,       Of the bells, bells, bells:         To the tolling of the bells,     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,             Bells, bells, bells—   To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

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, Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers, Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathëd 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 gayly-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 Conqueror Worm

LO! ’t is a gala night   Within the lonesome latter years. An angel throng, bewinged, bedight   In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre to see   A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully   The music of the spheres.   Mimes, in the form of God on high,   Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly;   Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things   That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their condor wings   Invisible Woe.   That motley drama—oh, be sure   It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore   By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in   To the self-same spot; And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   And Horror the soul of the plot.   But see amid the mimic rout   A crawling shape intrude: A blood-red thing that writhes from out   The scenic solitude! It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs   In human gore imbued.   Out—out are the lights—out all!   And over each quivering form The curtain, a funeral pall,   Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan,   Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

The Haunted Palace

IN the greenest of our valleys   By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace—   Radiant palace—reared its head. In the monarch Thought’s dominion,   It stood there; Never seraph spread a pinion   Over fabric half so fair.   Banners yellow, glorious, golden,   On its roof did float and flow (This—all this—was in the olden   Time long ago), And every gentle air that dallied,   In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,   A wingëd odor went away.   Wanderers in that happy valley   Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically,   To a lute’s well-tunëd law, Round about a throne where, sitting,   Porphyrogene, In state his glory well befitting,   The ruler of the realm was seen.   And all with pearl and ruby glowing   Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,   And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty   Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty,   The wit and wisdom of their king.   But evil things, in robes of sorrow,   Assailed the monarch’s high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow   Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory   That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story   Of the old time entombed.   And travellers now within that valley   Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically   To a discordant melody; While, like a ghastly rapid river,   Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever,   And laugh—but smile no more.

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. “’T is some visitor,” 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 ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore, 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 “’T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, Some late visitor 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 somewhat 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:     ’T is 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 Pallas 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!”     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 the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further 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 fancy 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 nepenthe 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?—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, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore: Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the 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!

The Sleeper

AT midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain-top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies Irene, with her destinies!   O lady bright! can it be right, This window open to the night? The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop; The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully, so fearfully, Above the closed and fringëd lid ’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall. O lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor: strange thy dress: Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness!   The lady sleeps. Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye, While the pale sheeted ghosts go by.   My love, she sleeps. Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep! Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold: Some vault that oft hath flung its black And wingëd panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o’er the crested palls Of her grand family funerals: Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone: Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne’er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin, It was the dead who groaned within!

To Helen

HELEN, thy beauty is to me   Like those Nicæan barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,   The weary, wayworn wanderer bore   To his own native shore.   On desperate seas long wont to roam,   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home   To the glory that was Greece   And the grandeur that was Rome.   Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche   How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand!   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which   Are Holy Land!

To One in Paradise

THOU wast all that to me, love,   For which my soul did pine: A green isle in the sea, love,   A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,   And all the flowers were mine.   Ah, dream too bright to last!   Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast!   A voice from out the Future cries, “On! on!”—but o’er the Past   (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast.   For, alas! alas! with me   The light of Life is o’er!   No more—no more—no more— (Such language holds the solemn sea   To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,   Or the stricken eagle soar.   And all my days are trances,   And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances,   And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances,   By what eternal streams.

Ulalume

THE SKIES they were ashen and sober;     The leaves they were crispëd 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.   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 groan 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 lustre 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 to 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 until 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 sibyllic 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 the 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—     ’T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”   Then my heart it grew ashen and sober     As the leaves that were crispëd 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,     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.”

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