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!"

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic, best known for his poems and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole. His work initiated the modern detective story genre and contributed significantly to the emerging science fiction genre. Poe's most famous works include 'The Raven,' 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher.'

Edgar Allan Poe

Eulalie

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

Stanzas

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

The Sleeper

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

To Helen

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

English

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By a route obscure and lonely,
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Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
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In The Greenest Of The Valleys

I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once 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.

II.
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 winged odour went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
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Knight-Errant

Onward he gallops through enchanted gloom.
The spectres of the forest, dark and dim,
And shadows of vast death environ him
Onward he spurs victorious over doom.
Before his eyes that love's far fires illume
Where courage sits, impregnable and grim
The form and features of her beauty swim,
Beckoning him on with looks that fears consume.
The thought of her distress, her lips to kiss,
Mails him with triple might; and so at last:
To Lust's huge keep he comes; its giant wall,
Wild-towering, frowning from the precipice;
And through its gate, borne like a bugle blast,
O'er night and hell he thunders to his all.

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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 winged odor went away.

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Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
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Dickens in Camp

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health
On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his packs scant treasure
A hoarded volume drew,
And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
To hear the tale anew.

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,
He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of Little Nell.

Perhaps twas boyish fancy, for the reader
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Romance

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been, a most familiar bird,
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child, with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away, forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

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