The Forest Reverie – Edgar Allan Poe

Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died–
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,–
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!

A Dream Within A Dream – Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Poem – Imitation

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 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 passed on: 

I care not though it perish 

With a thought I then did cherish 

Poem – Hymn

At morn- at noon- at twilight dim-

Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!

In joy and woe- 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! 

Poem – 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 moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

At heart:- ah, that horrible,

Horrible throbbing!
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.
And oh! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated- the terrible

Torture of thirst

For the naphthaline river

Of Passion accurst:-

I have drunk 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, it fancies

A holier odor

About it, of pansies-

A rosemary odor,

Commingled with pansies-

With rue and the beautiful

Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,

Bathing in many

A dream of the truth

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 in the sky,

For it sparkles with Annie-

It glows with the light

Of the love of my Annie-

With the thought of the light

Of the eyes of my Annie. 

Poem -Fairy Land

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 anything-

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 things!)

Have brought a specimen

Upon their quivering wings. 

Poem – 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 gazed awhile

On her cold smile;

Too cold- too cold for me-

There pass’d, 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. 

Poem – An Acrostic

Elizabeth it is in vain you say 

‘Love not’ — thou sayest it in so sweet a way: 

In vain those words from thee or L. E. L. 

Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well: 

Ah! if that language from thy heart arise, 

Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes. 

Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried 

To cure his love — was cured of all beside — 

His folly — pride — and passion — for he died. 

Poem – Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view. 

Poem – A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies

Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the lines! – they hold a treasure

Divine- a talisman- an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-

The words- the syllables! Do not forget

The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.

Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus

Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet’s, too,

Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-

Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying! 

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do. 

Poem – The Paean

How shall the burial rite be read? 

The solemn song be sung? 

The requiem for the loveliest dead,

That ever died so young? 
II.
Her friends are gazing on her,

And on her gaudy bier,

And weep! – oh! to dishonor

Dead beauty with a tear! 
III.
They loved her for her wealth –

And they hated her for her pride –

But she grew in feeble health,

And they love her – that she died.
IV.
They tell me (while they speak

Of her ‘costly broider’d pall’) 

That my voice is growing weak –

That I should not sing at all –
V.
Or that my tone should be

Tun’d to such solemn song

So mournfully – so mournfully,

That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI.
But she is gone above,

With young Hope at her side,

And I am drunk with love

Of the dead, who is my bride. –
VII.
Of the dead – dead who lies

All perfum’d there,

With the death upon her eyes,

And the life upon her hair.
VIII.
Thus on the coffin loud and long

I strike – the murmur sent

Through the grey chambers to my song,

Shall be the accompaniment.
IX.
Thou died’st in thy life’s June –

But thou did’st not die too fair:

Thou did’st not die too soon,

Nor with too calm an air.
X.
From more than fiends on earth,

Thy life and love are riven,

To join the untainted mirth

Of more than thrones in heaven –
XII.
Therefore, to thee this night

I will no requiem raise,

But waft thee on thy flight,

With a Pæan of old days. 

Poem – A Dream with in a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow! 

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream; 

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep! 

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp? 

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave? 

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? 

Poem – Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,

And the wreath is on my brow;

Satin and jewels grand

Are all at my command,

And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well;

But, when first he breathed his vow,

I felt my bosom swell-

For the words rang as a knell,

And the voice seemed his who fell

In the battle down the dell,

And who is happy now.
But he spoke to re-assure me,

And he kissed my pallid brow,

While a reverie came o’er me,

And to the church-yard bore me,

And I sighed to him before me,

Thinking him dead D’Elormie,

“Oh, I am happy now!”
And thus the words were spoken,

And this the plighted vow,

And, though my faith be broken,

And, though my heart be broken,

Here is a ring, as token

That I am 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,-

Lest the dead who is forsaken

May not be happy now. 

Poem – Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of ANNABEL LEE; 

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea; 

But we loved with a love that was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee; 

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee; 

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me-

Yes! – that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea) 

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.