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EDGAR ALLAN POE
(1809-1849)
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The Raven
Annabel Lee
The Bells
Eldorado
Bridal Ballad
The Haunted Palace
To Helen
Alone
Ulalume
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the great American poets of the fantastic and macabre. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who made their living by acting in touring companies. His father died when he was an infant, and his mother Eliza moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she continued to act until she too fell ill. She was cared for by the charitable women of the city, and when she died her two youngest children, Edgar and his sister, were sent to live with Richmond families. Edgar went to the household of John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant in the firm Ellis and Allan, whose wife Fanny had assisted Eliza during her illness.
Poe began school in Richmond, but when Ellis and Allan decided to open a London office, Allan moved his family to England. There, he was sent to the Manor School, on which the labyrinthine school in his story "William Wilson" is based. The story itself, in which a young man discovers that one of his schoolmates is his double, who looks exactly like him and shares his name and birthdate, seems to reflect Poe's uncomfortable position within the Allan household. Although he was known as Edgar Allan at school, he was never adopted by the Allans, and later published under his paternal name. This double identity influenced several of his short stories, including "William Wilson" and "The Ragged Mountains." When the tobacco market collapsed, the Allan family returned to Richmond, where Poe finished school. Although he excelled in both academics and athletics, he was essentially solitary. His poem "Alone" records a childhood in which he felt himself to be different, and separated from the people around him.
In 1825 Poe's brief engagement to his childhood love, Sarah Elmira Royster, was broken off by her father, and in 1826 he entered the University of Virginia, then a chaotic place where the sons of the southern aristocracy carried pistols and unpopular professors were liable to be shot. Finding himself short of money, he gambled to supplement Allan's allowance. By the end of his first year he was $2500 in debt. Allan refused to pay his gambling debts or send him back to the university, and arranged for Poe to work at Ellis and Allan. Instead, Poe left for Boston, where he printed his first collection of poems,
Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) and enlisted in the army under the name Edgar A. Perry, eventually rising to the position of sergeant major. He determined to enter West Point and, during a brief reconciliation following Fanny's death, asked Allan to help him gain admission. He also published a second collection,
Al Araaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829), signed Edgar A. Poe (a name which simultaneously included and excluded Allan). Poe was admitted to West Point in 1830, but decided to leave later that year. Allan, who had remarried and once again quarrelled with Poe, refused to give his permission, so Poe intentionally disobeyed orders. In 1831 he was dishonorably discharged, and left West Point with twelve cents in his pocket. However, he had persuaded his classmates to subscribe to his third collection of poetry,
Poems (1831), which contained a version of "To Helen."
After leaving West Point, Poe went to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. Attempting to create a literary career, he began to write prose, but could not find a publisher. Finally, in 1833 his story "MS. Found in a Bottle" won a contest, earning a $100 prize and publication. Allan died in 1834, leaving Poe nothing in his will. Thereafter, Poe supported himself primarily by editing and writing for magazines. In 1835 he moved to Richmond with his aunt and cousin to become editor of the
Southern Literary Messenger, which also published several of his stories, including "Berenice." In 1836 he married Virginia, who was only thirteen. Despite the difference in their ages, the marriage seems to have been a happy one; his devotion to her is evident in the poem "Annabel Lee," where she becomes the maiden loved and lost in "a kingdom by the sea." However, as an editor Poe became most famous not for his stories or poems but for his reviews, which were insightful but largely critical commentaries on contemporary American literature.
Poe resigned from the
Southern Literary Messenger in 1837, perhaps because of problems associated with his alcoholism. Poe himself sometimes denied his addiction to alcohol, at other times blaming it on poverty and disappointment, particularly the depression caused by Virginia's illness. After leaving Richmond, the family led a peripatetic existence, moving to New York, then Philadelphia, and then New York again as Poe found work at a series of magazines:
Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine (1839-1840),
Graham's Magazine (1841-1842), the
Evening Mirror (1844-1845), and the
Broadway Journal (1845). Many of Poe's own stories appeared in these magazines. This period also saw the publication of his only novel,
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), a collection of stories,
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), and the collection of poems that would make Poe famous,
The Raven and Other Poems (1845).
In 1847 Virginia died of tuberculosis, the disease that had caused Eliza's death. Poe, who had several times watched her come close to death, only to revive like the mysterious heroine of his story "Ligeia," was devastated by the loss. Later that year he published "Ulalume," which reflects his incomprehension and grief. His final years reveal a man suffering from deep psychological distress. In 1848 he became engaged to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who ended the engagement after seeing his erratic behavior, and attempted suicide. In 1849 he once again became engaged to his childhood love, now the widowed Sarah Elmira Shelton. On his way north after a lecture tour, intending to bring Aunt Clemm to Richmond, he disappeared. He was found delirious on a Baltimore street and taken to a hospital, where he died without recovering his senses.
Poe's poetry is often a form of fantastical autobiography: "The Haunted Palace" is Poe himself and the "sparkling" echoes his earlier poems, which change to the "discordant" melodies of later poems such as "The Raven." However, with the exception of "To Helen," most readers have found the "hideous throng" more satisfying. Poe's use of the macabre is evident in his imagery: the "midnight dreary," the spectral Raven, and the "shadow on the floor" that is the shadow of death. However, it is also, and perhaps more importantly, a matter of form. The repetition that structures "The Bells" is itself grotesque, and frightening even before we come to the mention of "Ghouls." If we listen carefully to the "clamor and the clangor," we can hear that the poem is, like Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart," about the mental state of its narrator: the voice speaking to us belongs to a madman. Only Algernon Charles Swinburne, a writer of the fantastic rather than the macabre, has produced language so extreme and yet so effective.
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 for evermore.
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 mortals 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 blessed 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 that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther 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."
"Prophet! said I, "thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore –
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting –
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting,
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!
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 wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me –
Yes! – that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we –
Of many far wiser than we –
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea –
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
THE BELLS
I.
Hear the sledges with the bells –
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells –
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now – now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells –
Of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells –
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people – ah, the people –
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone –
They are neither man nor woman –
They are neither brute nor human –
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells –
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells –
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells –
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells –
Bells, bells, bells –
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
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!"
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 revery came o'er me,
And to the church-yard 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 this the plighted vow,
And though my faith be broken,
And though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden token
That
proves me happy now!
Would 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.
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.
TO HELEN
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.
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!
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.
ULALUME
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.
Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul –
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll –
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole –
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere –
Our memories were treacherous and sere, –
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year –
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber –
(Though once we had journey down here),
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn –
As the star-dials hinted of morn –
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn –
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said – "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs –
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies –
To the Lethean peace of the skies –
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes –
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."
But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said – "Sadly this star I mistrust –
Her pallor I strangely mistrust: –
Oh, hasten! – oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! – let us fly! – for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust –
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust –
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
I replied – "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night! –
See! – it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright –
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom –
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb –
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said – "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied – "Ulalume – Ulalume –
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere –
As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried – "It was surely October
On
this very night of last year
That I journeyed – I journeyed down here –
That I brought a dread burden down here!
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber –
This misty mid region of Weir –
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, –
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
