Selections from Poe

TO —

Not long ago the writer of these lines,In the mad pride of intellectuality,Maintained "the power of words" – denied that everA thought arose within the human brainBeyond the utterance of the human tongue:And now, as if in mockery of that boast,Two words, two foreign soft dissyllables,Italian tones, made only to be murmuredBy angels dreaming in the moonlit "dewThat hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"Have stirred from out the abysses of his heartUnthought-like thoughts, that are the souls of thought, —Richer, far wilder, far diviner visionsThan even the seraph harper, Israfel(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures"),Could hope to utter. And I – my spells are broken;The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand;With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee,I cannot write – I cannot speak or think —Alas, I cannot feel; for't is not feeling, —This standing motionless upon the goldenThreshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,Gazing entranced adown the gorgeous vista,And thrilling as I see, upon the right,Upon the left, and all the way along,Amid empurpled vapors, far awayTo where the prospect terminates – thee only.

AN ENIGMA

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,  "Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.Through all the flimsy things we see at once  As easily as through a Naples bonnet —  Trash of all trash! how can a lady don it?Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff,Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff  Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."And, veritably, Sol is right enough.The general tuckermanities are arrantBubbles, ephemeral and so transparent;  But this is, now, you may depend upon it,Stable, opaque, immortal – all by dintOf the dear names that lie concealed within 't.

TO HELEN

I saw thee once – once only – years ago:I must not say how many – but not many.It was a July midnight; and from outA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaringSought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,With quietude and sultriness and slumber,Upon the upturned faces of a thousandRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe:Fell on the upturned faces of these rosesThat gave out, in return for the love-light,Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death:Fell on the upturned faces of these rosesThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchantedBy thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.Clad all in white, upon a violet bankI saw thee half reclining; while the moonFell on the upturned faces of the roses,And on thine own, upturned – alas, in sorrow!Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight —Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)That bade me pause before that garden-gateTo breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept,Save only thee and me – O Heaven! O God!How my heart beats in coupling those two words! —Save only thee and me. I paused, I looked,And in an instant all things disappeared.(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)The pearly lustre of the moon went out:The mossy banks and the meandering paths,The happy flowers and the repining trees,Were seen no more: the very roses' odorsDied in the arms of the adoring airs.All, all expired save thee – save less than thou:Save only the divine light in thine eyes,Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes:I saw but them – they were the world to me:I saw but them, saw only them for hours,Saw only them until the moon went down.What wild heart-histories seem to lie enwrittenUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres;How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope;How silently serene a sea of pride;How daring an ambition; yet how deep,How fathomless a capacity for love!But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing treesDidst glide away. Only thine eyes remained:They would not go – they never yet have gone;Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;They follow me – they lead me through the years;They are my ministers – yet I their slave;Their office is to illumine and enkindle —My duty, to be saved by their bright light,And purified in their electric fire,And sanctified in their elysian fire,They fill my soul with beauty (which is hope),And are, far up in heaven, the stars I kneel toIn the sad, silent watches of my night;While even in the meridian glare of dayI see them still – two sweetly scintillantVenuses, unextinguished by the sun.

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 amuletThat must be worn at heart. Search well the measure —  The word – the syllables. Do not forgetThe trivialest point, or you may lose your labor:  And yet there is in this no Gordian knotWhich 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 perdusThree 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.

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 throbbingAt 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 worstHas abated – the terrible  Torture of thirstFor the naphthaline river  Of Passion accurst:I have drank 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 saidThat 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 fanciesA 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 manyA 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 manyStars 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.

THE BELLS

I

Hear the sledges with the bells,Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars, that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline deligit;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells —From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes,And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells!How it dwellsOn the Future! how it tellsOf the rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells —To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells,Brazen bells!What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright!Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of tune,In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavorNow – now to sit or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf Despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear it fully knows,By the twangingAnd the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows;Yet the ear distinctly tells,In the janglingAnd the wrangling,How the danger sinks and swells, —By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells,Of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells —In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells,Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the nightHow we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people – ah, the people,They that dwell up in the steeple,All alone,And who tolling, tolling, tollingIn that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stone —They are neither man nor woman,They are neither brute nor human,They are Ghouls:And their king it is who tolls;And he rolls, rolls, rolls,RollsA pæan from the bells;And his merry bosom swellsWith the pæan of the bells,And he dances, and he yells:Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the pæan of the bells,Of the bells:Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,  To the throbbing of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells —  To the sobbing of the bells;Keeping time, time, time,  As he knells, knells, knells,In a happy Runic rhyme,  To the rolling of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells:  To the tolling of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,    Bells, bells, bells —To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

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 kinsmen 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 sideOf my darling – my darling – my life and my bride,  In her sepulchre there by the sea,  In her tomb by the sounding sea.

TO MY MOTHER

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,  The angels, whispering to one another,Can find among their burning terms of love —  None so devotional as that of "Mother,"Therefore by that dear name I long have called you —  You who are more than mother unto me,And fill my heart of hearts where Death installed you  In setting my Virginia's spirit free.My mother, my own mother, who died early,  Was but the mother of myself; but youAre mother to the one I loved so dearly,  And thus are dearer than the mother I knewBy that infinity with which my wifeWas dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

ELDORADO

Gayly bedight,A gallant knight,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 Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,"The shade replied,"If you seek for Eldorado!"

TALES

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

  Son coeur est un luth suspendu;  Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.Béranger

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me – upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium: the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it – I paused to think – what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression; and acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down – but with a shudder even more thrilling than before – upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country – a letter from him – which in its wildly inportunate nature had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said – it was the apparent heart that went with his request – which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.

Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested of late in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth at no period any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other – it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire to son of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher" – an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.

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1

In November, 1900, a single copy of this little volume sold in New York for $2550.

2

A well-known Marylander, author of "Horse-Shoe Robinson," "Swallow Barn," "Rob of the Bowl," and other popular novels of the day, and later Secretary of the Navy.

3

Repeater, a person who illegally votes more than once

4

"The Philosophy of the Short-Story," Chapter IV of "Pen and Ink."