Chapter 2

Her every tone is music's own, Like those of morning birds; And something more than melody Dwells ever in her words; The coinage of her heart are they, And from her lips each flows As one may see the burden'd bee Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her, The measures of her hours; Her feelings have the fragrancy, The freshness of young flowers; And lovely passions, changing oft, So fill her, she appears The image of themselves by turns,-- The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace A picture on the brain; And of her voice in echoing hearts A sound must long remain, But memory, such as mine of her, So very much endears, When death is nigh, my latest sigh Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone,-- A woman, of her gentle sex The seeming paragon. Her health! and would on earth there stood Some more of such a frame, That life might be all poetry, And weariness a name.

E.C. PINKNEY.

A Serenade.

Look out upon the stars, my love, And shame them with thine eyes, On which, than on the lights above, There hang more destinies. Night's beauty is the harmony Of blending shades and light: Then, lady, up,--look out, and be A sister to the night!

Sleep not!--thine image wakes for aye Within my watching breast; Sleep not!--from her soft sleep should fly, Who robs all hearts of rest. Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, And make this darkness gay, With looks whose brightness well might make Of darker nights a day.

E.C. PINKNEY.

The City in the Sea.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently, Gleams up the pinnacles far and free: Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls, Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls, Up shadowy, long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers, Up many and many a marvellous shrine, Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye,-- Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas, Along that wilderness of glass; No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea; No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave--there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide; As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven! The waves have now a redder glow, The hours are breathing faint and low; And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.

E.A. POE.

To The Past.

Thou unrelenting Past! Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast, Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years; Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind, Yielded to thee with tears,-- The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring The lost ones back,--yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain; thy gates deny All passage save to those who hence depart; Nor to the streaming eye Thou giv'st them back,--nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee Earth's wonder and her pride Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith, Love, that midst grief began, And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; With thee are silent fame, Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a space are they,-- Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last! Thy gates shall yet give way, Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, Shall then come forth, to wear The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished,--no! Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat;

All shall come back, each tie Of pure affection shall be knit again; Alone shall Evil die, And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, And her, who, still and cold, Fills the next grave,--the beautiful and young.

W.C. BRYANT.

Israfel.

And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.

--_Koran._

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamored moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven) Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings,-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit: Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute: Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

E.A. POE.

Unseen Spirits.

The shadows lay along Broadway,-- 'Twas near the twilight-tide,-- And slowly there a lady fair Was walking in her pride. Alone walked she; but, viewlessly, Walked spirits at her side.

Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, And Honor charmed the air; And all astir looked kind on her, And called her good as fair-- For all God ever gave to her She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare From lovers warm and true, For her heart was cold to all but gold, And the rich came not to woo; But honored well are charms to sell, If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair,-- A slight girl, lily-pale; And she had unseen company To make the spirit quail,-- 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn, And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow For this world's peace to pray; For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way! But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven By man is cursed alway.

N.P. WILLIS.

The Haunted Palace.

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.

Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow (This--all this--was in the olden Time long ago), And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A wingèd odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically, To a lute's well-tunèd law, Round about a throne where, sitting, Porphyrogene, In state his glory well befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.

And travellers now within that valley Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh--but smile no more.

E.A. POE.

To a Waterfowl.

Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-- The desert and illimitable air-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart:

He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

W.C. BRYANT.

To Helen.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicæan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!

E.A. POE.

Sparkling and Bright.

Sparkling and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. Then fill to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life's dominions, We here awhile would now beguile The graybeard of his pinions, To drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

But since Delight can't tempt the wight, Nor fond Regret delay him, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, Nor sober Friendship stay him, We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

C.F. HOFFMAN.

To One in Paradise.

Thou wast all that 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.

Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!"--but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast.

For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o'er! No more--no more--no more-- (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar.

And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams,-- In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.

E.A. POE.

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.

Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell when thou wert dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long, where thou art lying, Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine,

It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But I've in vain essayed it, And feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee.

F.G. HALLECK.

The Valley of Unrest.

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 sunlight lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley's restlessness. Nothing there is motionless, Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn to even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye, Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:--from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep:--from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.

E.A. POE.

To the Fringed Gentian.

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night:

Thou comest not when violets lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven as I depart.

W.C. BRYANT.

The Crowded Street.

Let me move slowly through the street, Filled with an ever-shifting train, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come! The mild, the fierce, the stony face,-- Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest; To halls in which the feast is spread; To chambers where the funeral guest In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair, Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, And dreams of greatness in thine eye! Go'st thou to build an early name, Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow! Who is now fluttering in thy snare? Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, Or melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread The dance till daylight gleam again? Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead? Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold, dark hours, how slow the light; And some, who flaunt amid the throng, Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call, They pass, and heed each other not. There is who heeds, who holds them all In His large love and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life, that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

W.C. BRYANT.

The Raven.

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 visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door,-- Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore,-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,-- Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, --Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-- This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping--tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you;"--here I opened wide the door:-- Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore:" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,-- Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-- 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-- Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-- Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore,-- Tell, me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-- Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered-- Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before-- On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore, Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never--nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels He hath sent thee Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!-- Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-- On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore,-- Is there,--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."