Edgar Allan Poe

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.

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’ercastDarkly my Present and my Past,Let my Future radiant shineWith sweet hopes of…

Whose forms we can’t discoverFor 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-lightWith 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-…

But a waking dream of life and lightHath left me broken-hearted.Ah! what is not a dream by dayTo him whose eyes are castOn things around him with a rayTurned back upon the past?That holy dream- that holy dream,While all the world were chiding,Hath cheered me as a lovely beamA lonely spirit guiding.What though that light,…

I. Beneath the vine-clad eaves,Whose shadows fall beforeThy lowly cottage door–Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves–Within thy snowy clasped handThe purple flowers it bore.Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land–Enchantress of the flowery wand,Most beauteous Isadore!II. And when I bade the dreamUpon thy spirit flee,Thy violet eyes to meUpturned, did overflowing…

(Drear path, alas! where growsNot even one lonely rose)-My soul at least a solace hathIn dreams of thee, and therein knowsAn Eden of bland repose.And thus thy memory is to meLike some enchanted far-off isleIn some tumultuous sea-Some ocean throbbing far and freeWith storms- but where meanwhileSerenest skies continuallyJust o’er that one bright island smile.

A type of that twin entity which springsFrom matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.There is a two-fold 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…

That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was GreeceAnd the grandeur that was Rome.Lo! in yon brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah,…

In sunshine and in shadow,Had journeyed long,Singing a song,In search of Eldorado.But he grew old-This knight so bold-And o’er his heart a shadowFell as he foundNo spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado.And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow-‘Shadow,’ said he,‘Where can it be-This land of Eldorado?’‘Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the…

The leaves they were withering and sere;It was night in the lonesome OctoberOf 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…