Category: The Poe Museum Blog

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This poem remained unpublished during Poe’s lifetime.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

Dream-Land

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule —
From a wild weird clime, that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE — out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead, —
Their still waters, still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached my home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule. 

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead, —
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily, —
By the mountain — near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, —
By the gray woods, — by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp, —
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls, —
By each spot the most unholy —
In each nook most melancholy, —
There the traveler meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past —
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by —
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the worms, and Heaven.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have journeyed home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule. 

For the heart whose woes are legion
’T is a peaceful, soothing region —
For the spirit that walks in shadow
’T is — oh ’t is an Eldorado!
But the traveler, traveling through it,
May not — dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills the King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringéd lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses. 

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1844

The Doomed City

A PROPHECY.

Lo! Death hath rear’d himself a throne
In a strange city, all alone,
Far down within the dim west —
And the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best,
Have gone to their eternal rest. 

There shrines, and palaces, and towers
Are — not like any thing of ours —
O! no — O! no — ours never loom
To heaven with that ungodly gloom!
Time-eaten towers that tremble not!
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

A heaven that God doth not contemn
With stars is like a diadem —
We liken our ladies’ eyes to them —
But there! that everlasting pall!
It would be mockery to call
Such dreariness a heaven at all. 

Yet tho’ no holy rays come down
On the long night-time of that town,
Light from the lurid, deep sea
Streams up the turrets silently —
Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptur’d ivy and stone flowers —
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —
Up many a melancholy shrine
Whose entablatures intertwine
The mask the — the viol — and the vine. 

There open temples — open graves
Are on a level with the waves —
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye.
Not the gaily-jewell’d dead
Tempt the waters from their bed:
For no ripples curl,  alas!
Along that wilderness of glass —
No swellings hint that winds may be
Upon a far-off happier sea:
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from the high towers of the town
Death looks gigantically down.

But lo! a stir is in the air!
The wave! there is a ripple there!
As if the towers had thrown aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide —
As if the turret-tops had given
A vacuum in the filmy heaven:
The waves have now a redder glow —
The very hours are breathing low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell rising from a thousand thrones
Shall do it reverence,
And Death to some more happy clime
Shall give his undivided time.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1831. Also called “The City in the Sea.”

Image by Edmund Dulac

The Divine Right of Kings

The only king by right divine
Is Ellen King, and were she mine
I’d strive for liberty no more,
But hug the glorious chains I wore.

 Her bosom is an ivory throne,
Where tyrant virtue reigns alone;
No subject vice dare interfere,
To check the power that governs here. 

O! would she deign to rule my fate,
I’d worship Kings and kingly state,
And hold this maxim all life long,
The King — my King — can do no wrong.

P.

---

Many scholars attribute this poem to Edgar Allan Poe.

Originally Published in 1845.

The Coliseum

Lone ampitheatre! Grey Coliseum!
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length, at length — after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage, and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered, and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory. 

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence and Desolation! and dim Night!
Gaunt vestibules! and phantom-peopled aisles!
I feel ye now: I feel ye in your strength!
O spells more sure than e’er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars! 

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls:
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat:
Here, where the dames of Rome their yellow hair
Wav’d to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle:
Here, where on ivory couch the Cæsar sate,
On bed of moss lies gloating the foul adder:
Here, where on golden throne the monarch loll’d,
Glides spectre-like unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones. 

These crumbling walls; these tottering arcades;
These mouldering plinths; these sad, and blacken’d shafts;
These vague entablatures; this broken frieze;
These shattered cornices; this wreck; this ruin;
These stones, alas! — these grey stones — are they all;
All of the great and the colossal left
By the corrosive hours to Fate and me? 

“Not all,” — the echoes answer me; “not all:
Prophetic sounds, and loud, arise forever
From us, and from all ruin, unto the wise,
As in old days from Memnon to the sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men: — we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not desolate — we pallid stones;
Not all our power is gone; not all our Fame;
Not all the magic of our high renown;
Not all the wonder that encircles us;
Not all the mysteries that in us lie;
Not all the memories that hang upon,
And cling around about us now and ever,
And clothe us in a robe of more than glory.”

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1833

Image by W. Heath Robinson

Fairyland

Dim vales — and shadowy floods —
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over.
Huge moons there wax and wane —
Again — again — again —
Ev’ry moment of the night —
For ever changing places —
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces;
About twelve by the moon-dial
One, more filmy than the rest
[A sort which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best]
Comes down — still down —   and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain’s eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, and rich halls,
Wherever they may be —
O’er the strange woods — o’er the sea —
Over spirits on the wing
Over every drowsy thing —
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light —
And then, how deep! O! deep!
Is the passion of their sleep!
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like —— almost any thing —
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before —
Videlicet a tent —
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(The unbelieving things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1829

Catholic Hymn

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner’s sacrifice
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.

At morn, at noon, at twilight dim
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn.
In joy and wo, in good and ill
Mother of God! be with me still.

When my hours flew gently by,
And no storms were in the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be
Thy love did guide to thine and thee.

Now, when clouds of Fate o’ercast
All my Present, and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published in Poe’s story “Morella” in 1835.

Image by Harry Clarke

Beloved Physician

The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God nerve the soul that ne’er forgets
In calm or storm, by night or day,
Its steady toil, its loyalty.
[. . .]

 

[. . .]
The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God shield the soul that ne’er forgets.
[. . .]

 

[. . .]
The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God guide the soul that ne’er forgets.
[. . .]

 

[. . .] so tired, so weary,
The soft head bows, the sweet eyes close,
The faithful heart yields to repose.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

This poem was never published during Poe’s lifetime and only fragments remain of the original piece.

Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow —
Satins and jewels grand,
And many a rood of land,
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now!

 

He has loved me long and well,
And, when he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell,
For — the words were his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now!

 

And he spoke to re-asure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow —
But a reverie came o’re me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
“O, I am happy now!”

 

And thus they said I plighted
An irrevocable vow —
And my friends are all delighted
That his love I have requited —
And my mind is much benighted
If I am not happy now!

 

Lo! the ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow —
Satins and jewels grand,
And many a rood of land,
Are all at my command,
And I must be happy now!

 

I have spoken — I have spoken —
They have registered the vow —
And though my faith be broken,
And though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden token
That proves me happy now!

 

Would God I could awaken!
For I dream — I know not how!
And my soul is sorely shaken,
Lest an evil step be taken,
And the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now!

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published as “Ballad” in 1837

Image by Edmund Dulac