Ulalume / Edgar Allan Poe

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.

To Zante / Edgar Allan Poe

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,

Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!

How many memories of what radiant hours

At sight of thee and thine at once awake!

How many scenes of what departed bliss!

How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!

How many visions of a maiden that is

No more--no more upon thy verdant slopes!

To The River / Edgar Allan Poe

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow

Of crystal, wandering water,

Thou art an emblem of the glow

Of beauty--the unhidden heart--

The playful maziness of art

In old Alberto's daughter;

To One in Paradise / Edgar Allan Poe

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine--

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine.

To My Mother / Edgar Allan Poe

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.

To Marie Louise (Shew) / Edgar Allan Poe

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning--

Of all to whom thine absence is the night--

The blotting utterly from out high heaven

The sacred sun--of all who, weeping, bless thee

Hourly for hope--for life--ah, above all,

To Isadore / Edgar Allan Poe

I. Beneath the vine-clad eaves,

Whose shadows fall before

Thy lowly cottage door--

Under the lilac's tremulous leaves--

Within thy snowy clasped hand

The 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!

To Helen / Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

To Frances S. Osgood / Edgar Allan Poe

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.

To F / Edgar Allan Poe

Beloved! amid the earnest woes

That crowd around my earthly path--

(Drear path, alas! where grows

Not even one lonely rose)--

My soul at least a solace hath

In dreams of thee, and therein knows

An Eden of bland repose.

To - - - / Edgar Allan Poe

1

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see

The wantonest singing birds

Are lips - and all thy melody

Of lip-begotten words -

The Village Street / Edgar Allan Poe

In these rapid, restless shadows,

Once I walked at eventide,

When a gentle, silent maiden,

Walked in beauty at my side.

She alone there walked beside me

All in beauty, like a bride.

The Valley of Unrest / Edgar Allan Poe

Once it smiled a silent dell

Where the people did not dwell;

They had gone unto the wars,

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

Nightly, from their azure towers,

To keep watch above the flowers,

In the midst of which all day

The red sun-light lazily lay,

The Sleeper / Edgar Allan Poe

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 Raven / Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--

Only this and nothing more."

The Lake / Edgar Allan Poe

In spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot

The which I could not love the less--

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

The Haunted Palace / Edgar Allan Poe

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!

The Happiest Day / Edgar Allan Poe

I. The happiest day--the happiest hour

My seared and blighted heart hath known,

The highest hope of pride and power,

I feel hath flown.

II. Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween

But they have vanished long, alas!

The visions of my youth have been--

But let them pass.

The Forest Reverie / Edgar Allan Poe

'Tis said that when

The hands of men

Tamed this primeval wood,

And hoary trees with groans of wo,

Like warriors by an unknown foe,

Were in their strength subdued,

The virgin Earth

Gave instant birth

To springs that ne'er did flow--

That in the sun

Did rivulets run,

The Conqueror Worm / Edgar Allan Poe

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.