Young flowers were whispering in melody To happy flowers that night-and tree to tree; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moonlit dell; Yet silence came upon material things-Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings-And sound alone that from the spirit sprang Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang: “‘Neath the blue-bell or streamer-Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
The moonbeam away—
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro’ the shade, and Come down to your brow
Like-eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now—
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours—
And shake from your tresses
Encumber’d with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too-
(O! how, without you, Love!
Could angels be blest?)
Those kisses of true Love
That lull’d ye to rest!
Up!- shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night—
It would weigh down your flight
And true love caresses—
O, leave them apart!
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone Albatros,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?
Ligeia! wherever
Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep—
But the strains still arise
Which thy vigilance keep—
The sound of the rain,
Which leaps down to the flower—
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower—
The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
Are the music of things—
But are modell’d, alas!-
Away, then, my dearest,
Oh! hie thee away
To the springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon-ray—
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast—
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid—
Some have left the cool glade, and Have slept with the bee-Arouse them, my maiden,
On moorland and lea—
Go! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
Thy musical number
They slumbered to hear—
For what can awaken
An angel so soon,
Whose sleep hath been taken
Beneath the cold moon,
As the spell which no slumber
Of witchery may test,
The rhythmical number
Which lull’d him to rest?”
Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th’ Empyrean thro’, Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight-Seraphs in all but “Knowledge,” the keen light That fell, refracted, thro’ thy bounds, afar, O Death! from eye of God upon that star: Sweet was that error-sweeter still that death-Sweet was that error-even with us the breath Of Science dims the mirror of our joy-To them ‘twere the Simoom, and would destroy-For what (to them) availeth it to know That Truth is Falsehood-or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death-with them to die was rife With the last ecstasy of satiate life-Beyond that death no immortality—
But sleep that pondereth and is not “to be’!-
And there-oh! may my weary spirit dwell-Apart from Heaven’s Eternity-and yet how far from Hell!
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen- ‘mid “tears of perfect moan.”
He was a goodly spirit-he who fell: A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well-A gazer on the lights that shine above-A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love: What wonder? for each star is eye-like there, And looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair-And they, and ev’ry mossy spring were holy To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of woe) Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo-Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sat he with his love-his dark eye bent With eagle gaze along the firmament: Now turn’d it upon her-but ever then It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
“Ianthe, dearest, see-how dim that ray!
How lovely ‘tis to look so far away!
She seem’d not thus upon that autumn eve I left her gorgeous halls-nor mourn’d to leave.
That eve-that eve-I should remember well-The sun-ray dropp’d in Lemnos, with a spell On th’ arabesque carving of a gilded hall Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-And on my eyelids-O the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh’d them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: But O that light!- I slumber’d-Death, the while, Stole o’er my senses in that lovely isle So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept-or knew that he was there.
“The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon Was a proud temple call’d the Parthenon; More beauty clung around her column’d wall Than ev’n thy glowing bosom beats withal, And when old Time my wing did disenthral Thence sprang I-as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung, One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view-Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then, And half I wish’d to be again of men.”
“My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-And greener fields than in yon world above, And woman’s loveliness-and passionate love.”
“But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Fail’d, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft, Perhaps my brain grew dizzy-but the world I left so late was into chaos hurl’d-Sprang from her station, on the winds apart.
And roll’d, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar And fell-not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion thro’
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red Daedalion on the timid Earth.”
“We came-and to thy Earth-but not to us Be given our lady’s bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod She grants to us, as granted by her God-But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl’d Never his fairy wing O’er fairier world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea-But when its glory swell’d upon the sky, As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled-as doth Beauty then!”
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
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.
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,