The Complete Poetry. Эдгар Аллан По

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 grow-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.

1. And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. Koran.

      To ——

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      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.

      To ——

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      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

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      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.

      Song

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      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.

      Spirits of the Dead

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      Thy soul shall find itself alone

       'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone

       Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

       Into thine hour of secrecy.

       Be silent in that solitude

       Which is not loneliness—for then

       The spirits of the dead who stood

       In life before thee are again

       In death around thee—and their will

       Shall overshadow thee: be still.

       The night—tho' clear—shall frown—

       And the stars shall not look down

       From their high thrones in the Heaven,

       With light like Hope to mortals given—

       But their red orbs, without beam,

       To thy weariness shall seem

       As a burning and a fever

       Which would cling to thee forever.

       Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—

       Now are visions ne'er to vanish—

       From thy spirit shall they pass

       No more—like dew-drops 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