Selections from Poe. Edgar Allan Poe

      Thou wast all that 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 gray eye glances,

        And where thy footstep gleams —

      In what ethereal dances,

        By what eternal streams.

      Beloved! amid the earnest woes

        That crowd around my earthly path

      (Drear 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.

      And thus thy memory is to me

        Like some enchanted far-off isle

      In some tumultuous sea, —

      Some ocean throbbing far and free

        With storms, but where meanwhile

      Serenest skies continually

        Just o'er that one bright island smile.

      Thou wouldst be loved? – then let thy heart

        From its present pathway part not:

      Being everything which now thou art,

        Be nothing which thou art not.

      So with the world thy gentle ways,

        Thy grace, thy more than beauty,

      Shall be an endless theme of praise,

        And love – a simple duty.

      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 entombéd 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. Accurséd ground!

        Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

      O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!

        "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

      The ring is on my hand,

        And the wreath is on my brow;

      Satins 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 reassure 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.

      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!

      Lo! 't is a gala night

        Within the lonesome latter years.

      An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

        In veils, and drowned in tears,

      Sit in a theatre to see

        A play of hopes and fears,

      While the orchestra breathes fitfully

        The music of the spheres.

      Mimes,