Эдгар По - Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age--and love--together--

Roaming the forest, and the wild;

My breast her shield in wintry weather--

And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.

And she would mark the opening skies,

I saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.

Young Love's first lesson is----the heart:

For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

When, from our little cares apart,

And laughing at her girlish wiles,

I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,

And pour my spirit out in tears--

There was no need to speak the rest--

No need to quiet any fears

Of her--who asked no reason why,

But turned on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love

My spirit struggled with, and strove

When, on the mountain peak, alone,

Ambition lent it a new tone--

I had no being--but in thee:

The world, and all it did contain

In the earth--the air--the sea--

Its joy--its little lot of pain

That was new pleasure--the ideal,

Dim, vanities of dreams by night--

And dimmer nothings which were real--

(Shadows--and a more shadowy light!)

Parted upon their misty wings,

And, so, confusedly, became

Thine image and--a name--a name!

Two separate--yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious--have you known

The passion, father? You have not:

A cottager, I marked a throne

Of half the world as all my own,

And murmured at such lowly lot--

But, just like any other dream,

Upon the vapor of the dew

My own had past, did not the beam

Of beauty which did while it thro'

The minute--the hour--the day--oppress

My mind with double loveliness.

We walked together on the crown

Of a high mountain which looked down

Afar from its proud natural towers

Of rock and forest, on the hills--

The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,

But mystically--in such guise

That she might deem it nought beside

The moment's converse; in her eyes

I read, perhaps too carelessly--

A mingled feeling with my own--

The flush on her bright cheek, to me

Seemed to become a queenly throne

Too well that I should let it be

Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then,

And donned a visionary crown--

Yet it was not that Fantasy

Had thrown her mantle over me--

But that, among the rabble--men,

Lion ambition is chained down--

And crouches to a keeper's hand--

Not so in deserts where the grand--

The wild--the terrible conspire

With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!--

Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

Above all cities? in her hand

Their destinies? in all beside

Of glory which the world hath known

Stands she not nobly and alone?

Falling--her veriest stepping-stone

Shall form the pedestal of a throne--

And who her sovereign? Timour--he

Whom the astonished people saw

Striding o'er empires haughtily

A diademed outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given,

On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!

Which fall'st into the soul like rain

Upon the Siroc-withered plain,

And, failing in thy power to bless,

But leav'st the heart a wilderness!

Idea! which bindest life around

With music of so strange a sound

And beauty of so wild a birth--

Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see

No cliff beyond him in the sky,

His pinions were bent droopingly--

And homeward turned his softened eye.

'Twas sunset: When the sun will part

There comes a sullenness of heart

To him who still would look upon

The glory of the summer sun.

That soul will hate the ev'ning mist

So often lovely, and will list

To the sound of the coming darkness (known

To those whose spirits hearken) as one

Who, in a dream of night, would fly,

But cannot , from a danger nigh.

What tho' the moon--tho' the white moon

Shed all the splendor of her noon,

Her smile is chilly--and her beam,

In that time of dreariness, will seem

(So like you gather in your breath)

A portrait taken after death.

And boyhood is a summer sun

Whose waning is the dreariest one--

For all we live to know is known,

And all we seek to keep hath flown--

Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall

With the noon-day beauty--which is all.

I reached my home--my home no more--

For all had flown who made it so.

I passed from out its mossy door,

And, tho' my tread was soft and low,

A voice came from the threshold stone

Of one whom I had earlier known--

O, I defy thee, Hell, to show

On beds of fire that burn below,

An humbler heart--a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe--

I know --for Death who comes for me

From regions of the blest afar,

Where there is nothing to deceive,

Hath left his iron gate ajar.

And rays of truth you cannot see

Are flashing thro' Eternity----

I do believe that Eblis hath

A snare in every human path--

Else how, when in the holy grove

I wandered of the idol, Love,--

Who daily scents his snowy wings

With incense of burnt-offerings

From the most unpolluted things,

Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven

Above with trellised rays from Heaven

No mote may shun--no tiniest fly--

The light'ning of his eagle eye--

How was it that Ambition crept,

Unseen, amid the revels there,

Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt

In the tangles of Love's very hair!

________

The End | Go to top

The Valley of Unrest

Once it smiled a silent dell

Where the people did not dwell;

They had gone unto the wars,

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

Nightly, from their azure towers,

To keep watch above the flowers,

In the midst of which all day

The red sun-light lazily lay,

Now each visitor shall confess

The sad valley's restlessness.

Nothing there is motionless--

Nothing save the airs that brood

Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

That palpitate like the chill seas

Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

Unceasingly, from morn till even,

Over the violets there that lie

In myriad types of the human eye--

Over the lilies that wave

And weep above a nameless grave!

They wave:--from out their fragrant tops

Eternal dews come down in drops.

They weep:--from off their delicate stems

Perennial tears descend in gems.

________

The End | Go to top

Israfel

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell

"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"

None sing so wildly well

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),

Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell

Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon,

The enamoured Moon

Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin

(With the rapid Pleiads, even,

Which were seven),

Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir

And the other listening things)

That Israfeli's fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings--

The trembling living wire

Of those unusual strings.