Эдгар По - Works of Edgar Allan Poe

There the traveller 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 Earth--and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion

'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--

For the spirit that walks in shadow

'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!

But the traveller, travelling through it,

May not--dare not openly view it;

Never its mysteries are exposed

To the weak human eye unclosed;

So wills its King, who hath forbid

The uplifting of the fringed 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.

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To Zante

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,

Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!

How many memories of what radiant hours

At sight of thee and thine at once awake!

How many scenes of what departed bliss!

How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!

How many visions of a maiden that is

No more--no more upon thy verdant slopes!

No more! alas, that magical sad sound

Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more --

Thy memory no more! Accursed ground

Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!

"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

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Hymn

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 the Hours flew brightly by,

And not a cloud obscured the sky,

My soul, lest it should truant be,

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,

Let my future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

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Sonnet -- To Science

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

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Al Aaraaf

Mysterious star!

Thou wert my dream

All a long summer night--

Be now my theme!

By this clear stream,

Of thee will I write;

Meantime from afar

Bathe me in light!

Thy world has not the dross of ours,

Yet all the beauty--all the flowers

That list our love or deck our bowers

In dreamy gardens, where do lie

Dreamy maidens all the day;

While the silver winds of Circassy

On violet couches faint away.

Little--oh! little dwells in thee

Like unto what on earth we see:

Beauty's eye is here the bluest

In the falsest and untruest--

On the sweetest air doth float

The most sad and solemn note--

If with thee be broken hearts,

Joy so peacefully departs,

That its echo still doth dwell,

Like the murmur in the shell.

Thou! thy truest type of grief

Is the gently falling leaf--

Thou! thy framing is so holy

Sorrow is not melancholy.

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Tamerlane

Kind solace in a dying hour!

Such, father, is not (now) my theme--

I will not madly deem that power

Of Earth may shrive me of the sin

Unearthly pride hath revelled in--

I have no time to dote or dream:

You call it hope--that fire of fire!

It is but agony of desire:

If I can hope--O God! I can--

Its fount is holier--more divine--

I would not call thee fool, old man,

But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit

Bowed from its wild pride into shame

O yearning heart! I did inherit

Thy withering portion with the fame,

The searing glory which hath shone

Amid the Jewels of my throne,

Halo of Hell! and with a pain

Not Hell shall make me fear again--

O craving heart, for the lost flowers

And sunshine of my summer hours!

The undying voice of that dead time,

With its interminable chime,

Rings, in the spirit of a spell,

Upon thy emptiness--a knell.

I have not always been as now:

The fevered diadem on my brow

I claimed and won usurpingly--

Hath not the same fierce heirdom given

Rome to the C?sar--this to me?

The heritage of a kingly mind,

And a proud spirit which hath striven

Triumphantly with human kind.

On mountain soil I first drew life:

The mists of the Taglay have shed

Nightly their dews upon my head,

And, I believe, the winged strife

And tumult of the headlong air

Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven--that dew--it fell

('Mid dreams of an unholy night)

Upon me with the touch of Hell,

While the red flashing of the light

From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,

Appeared to my half-closing eye

The pageantry of monarchy;

And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar

Came hurriedly upon me, telling

Of human battle, where my voice,

My own voice, silly child!--was swelling

(O! how my spirit would rejoice,

And leap within me at the cry)

The battle-cry of Victory!

The rain came down upon my head

Unsheltered--and the heavy wind

Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

It was but man, I thought, who shed

Laurels upon me: and the rush--

The torrent of the chilly air

Gurgled within my ear the crush

Of empires--with the captive's prayer--

The hum of suitors--and the tone

Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

My passions, from that hapless hour,

Usurped a tyranny which men

Have deemed since I have reached to power,

My innate nature--be it so:

But, father, there lived one who, then,

Then--in my boyhood--when their fire

Burned with a still intenser glow

(For passion must, with youth, expire)

E'en then who knew this iron heart

In woman's weakness had a part.

I have no words--alas!--to tell

The loveliness of loving well!

Nor would I now attempt to trace

The more than beauty of a face

Whose lineaments, upon my mind,

Are--shadows on th' unstable wind:

Thus I remember having dwelt

Some page of early lore upon,

With loitering eye, till I have felt

The letters--with their meaning--melt

To fantasies--with none.

O, she was worthy of all love!

Love as in infancy was mine--

'Twas such as angel minds above

Might envy; her young heart the shrine

On which my every hope and thought

Were incense--then a goodly gift,

For they were childish and upright--

Pure--as her young example taught:

Why did I leave it, and, adrift,