Selections from Poe. Edgar Allan Poe

thy spirit shall they pass

      No more, like dewdrops from the grass.

      The breeze, the breath of God, is still,

      And the mist upon the hill

      Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,

      Is a symbol and a token.

      How it hangs upon the trees,

      A mystery of mysteries!

      TO —

      I heed not that my earthly lot

        Hath little of Earth in it,

      That years of love have been forgot

        In the hatred of a minute:

      I mourn not that the desolate

        Are happier, sweet, than I,

      But that you sorrow for my fate

        Who am a passer-by.

      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.

      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.

      TO SCIENCE

A PROLOGUE TO "AL AARAAF"

      Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art,

        Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

      Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

        Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

      How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

        Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

      To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

        Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

      Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,

        And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

      To seek a shelter in some happier star?

        Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

      The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

      The summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree?

      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!

      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