The Poe Museum Blog

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 ...

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 ...

To Helen Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o’er a perfum’d sea,The weary way-worn wanderer boreTo his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the beauty of fair Greece,And the grandeur of old Rome. Lo! in that little window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand!The folded scroll within thy hand —A Psyche from the regions whichAre Holy land! Edgar Allan Poe Published 1831 Image by Edmund Dulac ...

A Tale of the Ragged Mountains During the fall of the year 1827, while residing near Charlottesville in Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of a Mr. Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I found it impossible to comprehend him either in his mental, his moral, or his physical relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory account. Where he came from I never ascertained. Even about his age — although I call him a young gentleman — there was something which perplexed me in no little degree. He ...