The Raven and Other Poems — 1845 volume text — reading text

breath to fan his fire. Look ’round thee now on Samarcand! — Is not she 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 hearken) 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 trellic'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? A Dream A DREAM. ~~~~~~~~ IN visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed — But a waking dreams 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 Truths day-star? Romance 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 Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares Through gazing on the 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 Unless it trembled with the strings. Fairy-land FAIRY-LAND. ~~~~~~~~~~ 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. To —— 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 enshrined 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 the truth that gold can never buy — Of the baubles that it may. To the River —— 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 his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies — His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes. The Lake — To 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 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. Song 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 Helen TO HELEN. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ HELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed 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 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!