Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Poetry

So shake the very Heaven on high

With tumult as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Though gazing on the unquiet sky.

And when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings—

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden things!

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings.

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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—

Every moment of the night—

Forever 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 kind 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, over 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

(Never-contented thing!)

Have brought a specimen

Upon their quivering wings.

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In spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot

The which I could not love the less—

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall

Upon the spot, as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by

Murmuring in melody—

Then—ah, then, I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight—

A feeling not the jewelled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define—

Nor Love—although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining—

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

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'Twas noontide of summer,

And midtime of night,

And stars, in their orbits,

Shone pale, through the light

Of the brighter, cold moon.

'Mid planets her slaves,

Herself in the Heavens,

Her beam on the waves.

I gazed awhile

On her cold smile;

Too cold—too cold for me—

There passed, as a shroud,

A fleecy cloud,

And I turned 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 Heaven at night,

And more I admire

Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light.

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A dark unfathomed 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 on 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 wordly rest hath gone

With a sigh as it passed on:

I care not though it perish

With a thought I then did cherish.

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I

The happiest day—the happiest hour

My seared and blighted heart hath known,

The highest hope of pride and power,

I feel hath flown.

II

Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween

But they have vanished long, alas!

The visions of my youth have been—

But let them pass.

III

And pride, what have I now with thee?

Another brow may ev'n inherit

The venom thou hast poured on me—

Be still my spirit!

IV

The happiest day—the happiest hour

Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen

The brightest glance of pride and power

I feel have been:

V

But were that hope of pride and power

Now offered with the pain

Ev'n then I felt—that brightest hour I would not live again:

VI

For on its wing was dark alloy

And as it fluttered—fell

An essence—powerful to destroy

A soul that knew it well.

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I

Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal,

Like those champions devoted and brave,

When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,

And to Athens deliverance gave.

II

Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam

In the joy breathing isles of the blest;

Where the mighty of old have their home—

Where Achilles and Diomed rest.

III

In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,

Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,

When he made at the tutelar shrine

A libation of Tyranny's blood.

IV

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!

Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!

Endless ages shall cherish your fame,

Embalmed in their echoing songs!

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Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

My spirit not awakening, till the beam

Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

Yes! though 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 given,

'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.

For I have revelled when the sun was bright

I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light

And loveliness,—have left my very heart

Inclines of my imaginary 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 power

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 that that night-wind—let it pass.

I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy—and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid coloring 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 my own!— Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.