Poems by Edgar A. Poe — 1831 text — reading text

what better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis: “And now she's at the poney's head, And now she's at the poney's tail, On that side now, and now on this, And almost stifled her with bliss — A few sad tears does Betty shed, She pats the poney where or when She knows not: happy Betty Foy! O Johnny! never mind the Doctor!” Secondly: “The dew was falling fast, the — stars began to blink, I heard a voice, it said —— drink, pretty creature, drink; And looking o’er the hedge, be — fore me I espied A snow-white mountain lamb with a — maiden at its side, No other sheep were near, the lamb was all alone, And by a slender cord was — tether'd to a stone.” Now we have no doubt this is all true; we will believe it, indeed we will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a sheep from the bottom of my heart. * * * * * But there are occasions, dear B——, there are occasions when even Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an extract from his preface. “Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to a conclusion (impossible!) will, no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!) and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to assume that title.” Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Yet let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the bee Sophocles has eternalized a sore toe, and dignified a tragedy with a chorus of turkeys. * * * * * Of Coleridge I cannot speak but with reverence. His towering intellect! his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, “Jai trouve souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce quelles avancent, mais non pas en ce quelles nient,” and, to employ his own language, he has imprisioned his own conceptions by the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry I tremble, like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious, from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below. * * * * * What is Poetry? — Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! Give me, I demanded of a scholar some time ago, give me a definition of poetry? “Tres volontiers,” — and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakspeare! I imagined to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B——, think of poetry, and then think of — Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then — and then think of the Tempest — the Midsummer Night's Dream — Prospero — Oberon — and Titania! * * * * * A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having for its object an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness. What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?” * * * * * To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B——, what you no doubt perceive, for the metaphysical poets, as poets, the most sovereign contempt. That they have followers proves nothing — No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows. [The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 18:] *Spoudiotaton kai philosophikotaton genos. Introduction INTRODUCTION. ———— 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. Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then roll'd like tropic storms along, Where, tho' the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky. Lay bare, thro' vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven, That very blackness yet doth fling 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 turn'd 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. O, then the eternal Condor years So shook the very Heavens on high, With tumult as they thunder'd by; I had no time for idle cares, Thro' gazing on the unquiet sky! Or if an hour with calmer wing Its down did on my spirit fling, That little hour with lyre and rhyme To while away — forbidden thing! My heart half fear'd to be a crime Unless it trembled with the string. But now my soul hath too much room — Gone are the glory and the gloom — The black hath mellow'd into grey, 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 greybeard hath, Will shake his shadow in my path — And even the greybeard will o'erlook Connivingly my dreaming-book. To Helen TO HELEN. ———— Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea, The weary way-worn 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 beauty of fair Greece, And the grandeur of old Rome. Lo! in that little window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand! The folded scroll within thy hand — A Psyche from the regions which Are Holy land! Israfel ISRAFEL.* ———— I. In Heaven a spirit doth dwell Whose heart-strings are a lute — None sing so wild — so well As the angel Israfel — And the giddy stars are mute. II. Tottering above In her highest noon The enamoured moon Blushes with love — While, to listen, the red levin Pauses in Heaven. III. And they say (the starry choir And all the listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre With those unusual strings. IV. But the Heavens that angel trod Where deep thoughts are a duty — Where Love is a grown god — Where Houri glances are —— — Stay! turn thine eyes afar! — Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in yon star. V. Thou art not, therefore, wrong Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassion'd song: To thee the laurels belong Best bard, — because the wisest. VI. The extacies above With thy burning measures suit — Thy grief — if any — thy love With the fervor of thy lute — Well may the stars be mute! VII. Yes, Heaven is thine: but this Is a world of sweets and sours: Our flowers are merely — flowers, And the shadow of thy bliss Is the sunshine of ours. VIII. If I did dwell where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He would not sing one half as well — One half as passionately, And a stormier note than this would swell From my lyre within the sky. [The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 43:] *And the angel Israfel who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. — KORAN. The Doomed City THE DOOMED CITY. ———— Lo! Death hath rear'd himself a throne In a strange city, all alone, Far down within the dim west — And the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best, Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines, and palaces, and towers Are — not like any thing of ours — O! no — O! no — ours never loom To heaven with that ungodly gloom! Time-eaten towers that tremble not! Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. A heaven that God doth not contemn With stars is like a diadem — We liken our ladies’ eyes to them — But there! that everlasting pall! It would be mockery to call Such dreariness a heaven at all. Yet tho' no holy rays come down On the long night-time of that town, Light from the lurid, deep sea Streams up the turrets silently — Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowers Of sculptur'd ivy and stone flowers — Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls — Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls — Up many a melancholy shrine Whose entablatures intertwine The mask the — the viol — and the vine. There open temples — open graves Are on a level with the waves — But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye. Not the gaily-jewell'd dead Tempt the waters from their bed: For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass — No swellings hint that winds may be Upon a far-off happier sea: So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from the high towers of the town Death looks gigantically down. But lo! a stir is in the air! The wave! there is a ripple there! As if the towers had thrown aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide — As if the turret-tops had given A vacuum in the filmy heaven: The waves have now a redder glow — The very hours are breathing low — And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell rising from a thousand thrones Shall do it reverence, And Death to some more happy clime Shall give his undivided time. Fairy Land FAIRY LAND. ———— Sit down beside me, Isabel, Here, dearest, where the moonbeam fell Just now so fairy-like and well. Now thou art dress'd for paradise! I am star-stricken with thine eyes! My soul is lolling on thy sighs! Thy hair is lifted by the moon Like flowers by the low breath of June! Sit down, sit down — how came we here? Or is it all but a dream, my dear? You know that most enormous flower — That rose — that what d'ye call it — that hung Up like a dog-star in this bower — To-day (the wind blew, and) it swung So impudently in my face, So like a thing alive you know, I tore it from its pride of place And shook it into pieces — so Be all ingratitude requited. The winds ran off with it delighted, And, thro' the opening left, as soon As she threw off her cloak, yon moon Has sent a ray down with a tune. And this ray is a fairy ray — Did you not say so, Isabel? How fantastically it fell With a spiral twist and a swell, And over the wet grass rippled away With a tinkling like a bell! In my own country all the way We can discover a moon ray Which thro' some tatter'd curtain pries Into the darkness of a room, Is by (the very source of gloom) The motes, and dust, and flies, On which it trembles and lies Like joy upon sorrow! O, when will come the morrow? Isabel! do you not fear The night and the wonders here? Dim vales! and shadowy floods! And cloudy-looking woods Whose forms we can't discover For the tears that drip all over! Huge moons — see! wax and wane Again — again — again — Every moment of the night — Forever changing places! How they put out the