“Not all”- the Echoes answer me- “not all!
Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men-we rule With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent-we pallid stones.
Not all our power is gone-not all our fame-Not all the magic of our high renown-Not all the wonder that encircles us-Not all the mysteries that in us lie-Not all the memories that hang upon And cling around about us as a garment, Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”
The 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 theatre, 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 Woe!
That motley drama-oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore, 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 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, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
A Dream
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream-that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro’ storm and night, So trembled from afar-What could there be more purely bright In Truth’s day-star?
Dreamland
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule-From a wild clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE-out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters-lone and dead,-
Their still waters-still and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains-near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy—
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by-White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earth-and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion ‘Tis a peaceful, soothing region-For the spirit that walks in shadow ‘Tis-oh, ‘tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it, May not-dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
Dreams
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ‘Twere better than the cold reality Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be-that dream eternally Continuing-as dreams have been to me In my young boyhood-should it thus be given, ‘Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light And loveliness,- have left my very heart In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been Of mine own thought-what more could I have seen?
‘Twas once-and only once-and the wild hour From my remembrance shall not pass-some power Or spell had bound me- ‘twas the chilly wind Came o’er me in the night, and left behind Its image on my spirit-or the moon Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon Too coldly-or the stars-howe’er it was That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.
I have been happy, tho’ in a dream.
I have been happy-and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality, which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love-and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
A Dream
Within a Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Eldorado
Gaily 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 shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?”
“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied-
“If you seek for Eldorado!”
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.”
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 arrant Bubbles-ephemeral and so transparent-But this is, now-you may depend upon it-Stable, opaque, immortal-all by dint Of the dear names that he concealed within ‘t.
Eulalie
I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
Ah, less-less bright
The stars of the night