The Poe Museum Blog

To One in Paradise Thou wast that all to me, love,For which my soul did pine —A green isle in the sea, love, —A fountain and a shrineAll wreathed with fairy fruits and flowersAnd all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last!Oh, starry Hope! that didst ariseBut to be overcast!A voice from out the Future cries“On! on!” — but o’er the Past(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering liesMute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with meThe light of Life is o’er!No more — no more — no more(Such language holds the solemn seaTo the sands upon the shore)Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,Or the ...

The Pit and the Pendulum I was sick — sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence — the dread sentence of death — was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution, — perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with ...

A Dream Within a Dream Take this kiss upon thy brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow —You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if Hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand —How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep — while I weep!O, God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O, God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless ...

Berenice — A Tale. Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow! How is it that from Beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? — from the covenant of Peace a simile of sorrow? But thus is it. And as, in ethics, Evil is a consequence of Good, so, in fact, out of Joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in ...