Poetry

This is my poetry page, because so many people liked the poem I added to my home page, I decided to add SOME more of just my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poems, not at all his completed works. Check out links for more of his stories & poems, andothers at the bottom of this page. Among some of my fav. hobbies/interests, ..... (I'm hugely into computers, graphic design, web art & constuction, photography, writing, music, & other art, also movies, reading, psychology, games, sports, inline skating, biking, shopping, driving, beaches, stars, space, astronomy, outdoors, hangin' out, and more).... I also like to write poetry. I love writing, because it gets past what I think and becomes what I feel, whether it's directly about me,.. or in third person, relating to people & things around me. I would have *really* liked to have put some of my many poems & art here, but I'm afraid too many people would copy that kinda thing. I write mostly about life, friends, love, pain, emotions/feelings, nature, people, the world (metaphorically, direct, indirect, or whatever, there's always a peice of me in it). Anyway, enjoy and if you write any poetry, feel free to send me some, I'd love to read it. If I like it enough & you don't mind, I might ask you if I can add them to this page.... (but I'll always ask) Or if you have any cool links, free feel to e-mail me. Thanx!

A DREAM
In Visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken hearted.
Ah! What is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lonely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright,
In truth's day-star? (c) Edgar Allen Poe

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.

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up turrets silently--
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free--
Up domes--up spires--up kingly walls--
Up fanes--up Babylon-like walls--
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers--
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open frames and gaping waves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye--
Not the gayly-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass--
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea--
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave--there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide--
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow--
The hours are breathing faint and low--
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Dreams

    Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
    My spirit not awakening, 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 given,
    'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
    For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
    I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
    And loveliness,- have left my very heart
    In climes of my imagining, 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 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 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 our own!
    Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

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 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 mountains--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 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 enclosed;
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.

A Dream Within 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 save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Evening Star

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.

The Haunted Palace

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.

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 enamored 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.

       But the skies that angel trod,
         Where deep thoughts are a duty-
       Where Love's a grown-up God-
         Where the Houri glances are
       Imbued with all the beauty
         Which we worship in a star.

       Therefore thou art not wrong,
         Israfeli, who despisest
       An unimpassioned song;
       To thee the laurels belong,
         Best bard, because the wisest!
       Merrily live, and long!

       The ecstasies above
         With thy burning measures suit-
       Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
         With the fervor of thy lute-
         Well may the stars be mute!

       Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
         Is a world of sweets and sours;
         Our flowers are merely- flowers,
       And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
         Is the sunshine of ours.

       If I could dwell
       Where Israfel
         Hath dwelt, and he where I,
       He might not sing so wildly well
         A mortal melody,
       While a bolder note than this might swell
       From my lyre within the sky.

The Lake

       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 that 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.

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; -- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow-- sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me-- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating:
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came tapping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door;--
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Rave, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such a name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I,"what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methougt, the air grew denser, perfumed from some unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch,"I cried,"thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from they memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted,-- tell me truly, I implore--
Is there-- is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! --quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And the eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

Serenade

    So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
    I feel it more than half a crime,
    When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
    To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
    At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
    An image of Elysium lies:
    Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
    Form in the deep another seven:
    Endymion nodding from above
    Sees in the sea a second love.
    Within the valleys dim and brown,
    And on the spectral mountain's crown,
    The wearied light is dying down,
    And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
    Are redolent of sleep, as I
    Am redolent of thee and thine
    Enthralling love, my Adeline.
    But list, O list,- so soft and low
    Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
    That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
    My words the music of a dream.
    Thus, while no single sound too rude
    Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
    Our thoughts, our souls- O God above!
    In every deed shall mingle, love.

Silence

There are some qualities--some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a twofold Silence --sea and shore--
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

The Sleeper

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right--
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop--
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully--so carefully--
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold--
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals--
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone--
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

Spirits of the Dead

      Thy soul shall find itself alone
      'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
      Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
      Into thine hour of secrecy.

      Be silent in that solitude,
        Which is not loneliness- for then
      The spirits of the dead, who stood
        In life before thee, are again
      In death around thee, and their will
      Shall overshadow thee; be still.

      The night, though clear, shall frown,
      And the stars shall not look down
      From their high thrones in the Heaven
      With light like hope to mortals given,
      But their red orbs, without beam,
      To thy weariness shall seem
      As a burning and a fever
      Which would cling to thee for ever.

      Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
      Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
      From thy spirit shall they pass
      No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

      The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
      And the mist upon the hill
      Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
      Is a symbol and a token.
      How it hangs upon the trees,
      A mystery of mysteries!

To_

I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath little of earth in it--
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:--
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer by.

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea -
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.

For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

To One in Paradise

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine--
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers.
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!"--but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
"No more--no more--no more--"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams--
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.

To the River

      Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
        Of crystal, wandering water,
      Thou art an emblem of the glow
          Of beauty- the unhidden heart-
          The playful maziness of art
      In old Alberto's daughter;

      But when within thy wave she looks-
        Which glistens then, and trembles-
      Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
        Her worshipper resembles;
      For in his heart, as in thy stream,
        Her image deeply lies-
      His heart which trembles at the beam
        Of her soul-searching eyes.

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
        Henceforth I hold thy flower-enameled shore,
      O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
        "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

Ulalume

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere--
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir--
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, throught the alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll--
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole--
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk has been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--
Our memories were treacherous and sere,--
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)--
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journey down here)--
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn--
As the star-dials hinted of morn--
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn--
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said:"She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs--
She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies--
To the Lethean peace in the skies--
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said:"Sadly this star I mistrust--
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:--
Oh, hasten!--oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly!--let us fly!--for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust--
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust--
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied:"This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night!--
See!--it flickers up the sky throught the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom--
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb--
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said:"What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied:"Ulalume--Ulalume--
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere--
As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried:"It was surely October
On this very night last year,
That I jouneyed-- I journeyed down here--
That I brought a dread burden down here--
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--
This misty mid region of Weir--
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

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,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight 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 those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Ove the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye--
Over the lilies there 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 the delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
All poems copyrighted by Edgar Allen Poe, do not display them as otherwise.

Hopelessly Crying  by Richard Tornetta 
I wish I'd seen you as a little girl, 
Without your armor to fend off the world...
I would have kept you underneath my wing,
I would protect you from everything… 

But now you’re grown with walls of stone,
You just want the world to leave you alone…
Mature and developed the mold has hardened,
No more to grow in your heart’s garden…

I want you near but your past won’t allow, 
For you to let down your guard somehow… 
I want you now but there’s never time,
I just want to feel loved, is that such a crime?  

You try hard to hide it but it is painfully clear, 
It is too difficult to let me near… 
Countless hours spent on the phone, 
Yet I always seem to feel so alone… 

With stress and pressure your vision is clouded,
Every date scheduled, every minute counted…
Helping you through and understanding, 
Yet the problems seem to be never ending… 

The pain and hurt I take on my shoulders, 
If you only knew how they crush me like boulders… 
Altruism and second chances, 
I never seem to find my answers… 

You say to stay and work it out, 
But fail to remove my heart of doubt… 
I wish you could love me but it’s too late,
Oh why must we suffer such a depressing fate?

Alone

The City in the Sea

Dreams

Dream-Land

A Dream Within A Dream

Evening Star

Fairy-Land

The Haunted Palace

Imitation

Israfel

The Lake

The Raven

Serenade

Silence

The Sleeper

Spirits of the Dead

To_

I heed not that my earthly lot Hath little of earth in it-- That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute:-- I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer by.

To One in Paradise

To the River

To Zante

Ulalume

The Valley of Unrest

I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath little of earth in it--
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:--
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer by.