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 or 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.
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CONQUEROR WORM
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theater, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly --
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama! -- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased forevermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! -- It writhes! -- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out! -- out are the lights -- out all!
And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
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ELIZABETH
Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
[ Logic and common usage so commanding ]
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction;
Each poet -- if a poet -- in pursuing
The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less -- in short's a fool
Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
Being ignorant of one important rule,
Employed in even the theses of the school -
Called - I forget the heathenish Greek name
[ Called anything, its meaning is the same ]
"Always write first things uppermost in the heart."
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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.
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THE HAUNTED PALACE
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh -- but smile no more.
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LENORE
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! -- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear? -- weep now or nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read- the funeral song be sung! --
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young --
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her -- that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?-- the requiem how be sung
By you -- by yours, the evil eye, -- by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
bride.
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
The life still there, upon her hair -- the death upon her eyes.
"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven --
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven --
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then, -- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I! -- to-night my heart is light! -- no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"
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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.
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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 molders 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
Irene, with her Destinies!
O, 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 fearfully --
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
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale 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 has 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.
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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!
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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 revell'd 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 -- Oh 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
Bow'd 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 fever'd diadem on my brow
I claim'd and won usurpingly --
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar -- 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
Unshelter'd -- 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,
Usurp'd a tyranny which men
Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power,
My innate nature- be it so:
But father, there liv'd one who, then,
Then -- in my boyhood -- when their fire
Burn'd 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,
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 smil'd,
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 ask'd no reason why,
But turn'd 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 mark'd a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmur'd at such lowly lot --
But, just like any other dream,
Upon the vapour 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 walk'd together on the crown
Of a high mountain which look'd 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
Seem'd to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone.
I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
And donn'd 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 not she 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 diadem'd 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-wither'd 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 tower'd, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly --
And homeward turn'd his soften'd 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 -- the white moon
Shed all the splendour 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 reach'd my home -- my home no more
For all had flown who made it so.
I pass'd 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,
A 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 trellis'd rays from Heaven,
No mote may shun -- no tiniest fly --
The lightning 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?
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TO F - - S S. O - - D
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.
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TO M --
O!
I care not that my earthly lot
Hath little of Earth in it,
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute:
I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer by.
It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing -- strange! with tears --
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years --
'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
Which have wither'd as they rose
Lie dead on my heart-strings
With the weight of an age of snows.
Not that the grass- O! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown --
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.
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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, through an 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 had 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 journeyed 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 of the skies --
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes --
Come up through the lair 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 through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright --
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 of last year
That I journeyed- 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."
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