Category: The Poe Museum Blog

Israfel

I.

 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
Whose heart-strings are a lute —
None sing so wild —   so well
As the angel Israfel —
And the giddy stars are mute.

II.

Tottering above
In her highest noon
The enamoured moon
Blushes with love —
While, to listen, the red levin
Pauses in Heaven.

III.

And they say (the starry choir
And all the listening things)
That Israfeli’s fire
Is owing to that lyre
With those unusual strings.

IV.

But the Heavens that angel trod
Where deep thoughts are a duty —
Where Love is a grown god —
Where Houri glances are ——
— Stay! turn thine eyes afar! —
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in yon star.

V.

Thou art not, therefore, wrong
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassion’d song:
To thee the laurels belong
Best bard, — because the wisest.

VI.

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit —
Thy grief — if any — thy love
With the fervor of thy lute —
Well may the stars be mute!

VII.

Yes, Heaven is thine: but this
Is a world of sweets and sours:
Our flowers are merely — flowers,
And the shadow of thy bliss
Is the sunshine of ours. 

VIII.

If I did dwell where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He would not sing one half as well —
One half as passionately,
And a stormier note than this would swell
From my lyre within the sky.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1831

Image by W. Heath Robinson

Impromptu

To Kate Carol

When from your gems of thought I turn
To those pure orbs, your heart to learn,
I scarce know which to prize most high —
The bright i-dea, or the bright dear-eye.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1845

Imitation

A dark unfathom’d tide
Of interminable pride —
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen.
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass’d on,
I care not tho’ it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1827

The Haunted Palace

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Snow-white palace — reared its head.
In the monarch thought’s dominion —
It stood there!
Never Seraph spread his pinion
Over fabric half so fair. 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow —
This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago —
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the rampart plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away. 

All wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well tuned law,
Round about a throne where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The sovereign of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door;
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king. 

But evil things in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate!
Ah, let us mourn — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!
And round about his home the glory,
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed. 

And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door;
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh — but smile no more.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1839

Image by Edmund Dulac

The Happiest Day

The happiest day — the happiest hour,
My sear’d and blighted heart has known,
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feel hath flown —

 Of power, said I? Yes, such I ween —
But it has vanish’d — long alas!
The visions of my youth have been —
But let them pass. —

And pride! what have I now with thee?
Another brow may e’en inherit
The venom thou hast pour’d on me:
Be still my spirit.

 
The smile of love — soft friendship’s charm —
Bright hope itself has fled at last,
’T will ne’er again my bosom warm—
‘Tis ever past. 

The happiest day, — the happiest hour,
Mine eyes shall see, — have ever seen, —
The brightest glance of pride and power,
I feel has been.  

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1827

For Annie

Thank Heaven! — the crisis —
The danger is past;
And the lingering illness
Is over at last ——
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
——
Sadly, I know, I am
Shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move,
As I lie at full length: —
But no matter! — I feel
I am better, at length.
——
And I rest so composedly
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead —
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
——
The sickness — the nausea —
The pitiless pain —
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain —
With the fever called “Living”
That burned in my brain.
——
The moaning and groaning —
The sighing and sobbing —
Are quieted now; with
The horrible throbbing
At heart: — oh, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
——
And ah, of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated — the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the napthaline river
Of Glory accurst: —
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst: —
——
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground —
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
——
And ah! let it never be
Foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy,
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed —
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
——
My tantalized spirit here
Blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting, its roses —
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses.
——
For now, while so quietly
Lying, I fancy
A holier odor about me,
of pansy —
A rosemary odor
Commingled with pansy —
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansy.
——
And so I lie happily
Bathing in many
A dream of the love
And the beauty of Annie —
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
——
She tenderly kissed me —
She fondly caressed —
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast —
Deeply to sleep from the
Heaven of her breast.
——
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm —
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
——
And I lie so composedly
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead —
And I rest so contentedly
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead —
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead: —
——
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars of the Heaven — for it
Sparkles with Annie —
It glows with the thought
Of the love of my Annie —
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1849

Fanny

The dying swan by northern lakes
Sings its wild death song, sweet and clear,
And as the solemn music breaks
O’er hill and glen dissolves in air;
Thus musical thy soft voice came,
Thus trembled on thy tongue my name.
Like sunburst through the ebon cloud,
Which veils the solemn midnight sky,
Piercing cold evening’s sable shroud,
Thus came the first glance of that eye;
But like the adamantine rock,
My spirit met and braved the shock.
Let memory the boy recall
Who laid his heart upon thy shrine,
When far away his footsteps fall,
Think that he deem’d thy charms divine;
A victim on love’s altar slain,
By witching eyes which looked disdain.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1833

Evening Star

’Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
’Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gaz’d awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold — too cold for me —
There pass’d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turn’d away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heav’n at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1827

Eulalie

I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride —
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride. 

And ah! less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl,
And never a flake
Their lustre can make
Of the vapor and gold and pearl
Can vie with the sweet young Eulalie’s most unregarded curl —
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl. 

Now Doubt — now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines bright and strong
Astarté within the sky,
And ever to it dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye —
And ever to it young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1845

Elizabeth

Elizabeth — it surely is most fit
(Logic and common usage so commanding)
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding:
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction:
Each poet — if a poet — in pursuing
The muses thro’ their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less — in short’s a fool
Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
Being ignorant of one important rule,
Employed in even the theses of the school —
Called —— I forget the heathenish Greek name —
(Called any thing, its meaning is the same)
“Always write first things uppermost in the heart”

Edgar

---

Edgar Allan Poe

This poem remained unpublished during Poe’s lifetime.

This poem is an acrostic, read the first letter of each sentence.

Eldorado

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado. 

But he grew old —
This knight so bold —
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado. 

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow —
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be —
This land of Eldorado?” 

“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied, —
“If you seek for Eldorado!”

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1849

Image by W. Heath Robinson

Dreams

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak’ning, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow.
’Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be — that dream eternally
Continuing — as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood — should it thus be giv’n
’Twere folly still to hope for higher Heav’n.
For I have revell’d when the sun was bright
In the summer sky, in dreams of living light.
And loveliness, — have left my very heart
In climes of my imaginings apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought — what more could I have seen?
’Twas once — and only once — and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass — some pow’r
Or spell had bound me — ’twas the chilly wind
Came o’er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit — or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly — or the stars — howe’er it was
That dream was as that night-wind — let it pass.
I have been happy, tho’ in a dream.
I have been happy — and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid colouring 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 our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1827