The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Эдгар Аллан По

Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love—and all my own!— Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

      "In Youth I have known one"

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      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 ferver 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.

      A Pæan

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       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 gray chambers to my song,

       Shall be the accompaniment.

       IX

      Thou diedst in thy life's June—

       But thou didst not die too fair:

       Thou didst not die too soon,

       Nor with too calm an air.

       X

      From more than friends on earth,

       Thy life and love are riven,

       To join the untainted mirth

       Of more than thrones in heaven.—

       XI

      Therefore, to thee this night

       I will no requiem raise,

       But waft thee on thy flight,

       With a Pæan of old days.

      Notes

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      On the "Poems written in Youth" little comment is needed. This section includes the pieces printed for the first volume of 1827 (which was subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised versions, and a few others collected from various sources.

      Note on Al Aaraaf

      "Al Aaraaf" first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in 1829, and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however, this poem, its author's longest, was introduced by the following twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in all subsequent collections:

      Mysterious star!

       Thou wert my dream

       All a long summer night—