Works of Edgar Allan Poe

The Sleeper

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 rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;

Wrapping the fog about its breast,

The ruin moulders into rest;

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take,

And would not, for the world, awake.

All Beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies

(Her casement open to the skies)

Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right--

This window open to the night!

The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

Laughingly through the lattice-drop--

The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully--so fearfully--

Above the closed and fringed lid

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,

That, o'er the floor and down the wall,

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

Why and what art thou dreaming here?

Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,

A wonder to these garden trees!

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

Which is enduring, so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

This chamber changed for one more holy,

This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie

For ever with unopened eye,

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,

As it is lasting, so be deep;

Soft may the worms about her creep!

Far in the forest, dim and old,

For her may some tall vault unfold--

Some vault that oft hath flung its black

And winged panels fluttering back,

Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,

Of her grand family funerals--

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,

Against whose portal she hath thrown,

In childhood many an idle stone--

Some tomb from out whose sounding door

She ne'er shall force an echo more,

Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

It was the dead who groaned within.

________

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Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,

And the wreath is on my brow;

Satins and jewels grand

Are all at my command.

And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;

But, when first he breathed his vow,

I felt my bosom swell--

For the words rang as a knell,

And the voice seemed his who fell

In the battle down the dell,

And who is happy now.

But he spoke to reassure me,

And he kissed my pallid brow,

While a reverie came o'er me,

And to the churchyard bore me,

And I sighed to him before me,

Thinking him dead D'Elormie,

'Oh, I am happy now!'

And thus the words were spoken,

And thus the plighted vow,

And, though my faith be broken,

And, though my heart be broken,

Behold the golden keys

That proves me happy now!

Would to God I could awaken

For I dream I know not how,

And my soul is sorely shaken

Lest an evil step be taken,--

Lest the dead who is forsaken

May not be happy now.

________

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Lenore

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.

And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?--weep now or never more!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--

A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.

'Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!

How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung

By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?'

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath 'gone before,' with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--

For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--

The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.

'Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a p?an of old days!

Let no bell toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--