To F--

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.

And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storm,but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just oer that one bright inland smile.

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

The Lake - Early Version

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

The Valley Of Unrest

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

To One in Paradise

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

A Valentine

Edgar Allan Poe, Simple Poetry

English

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To One Departed

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.
For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad 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.

Edgar Allan Poe

To One in Paradise

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.

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 dark eye glances,
And where thy foo...

Edgar Allan Poe

To Isadore

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!


II

And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!


III

Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with...

Edgar Allan Poe

To Helen.

I saw thee once--once only--years ago:
I must not say how many--but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee h...

Edgar Allan Poe

To -- (IV)

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips, and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words,

Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined,
Then desolately fall,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall,

Thy heart, thy heart!, I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the truth that gold can never buy,
Of the baubles that it may.

Edgar Allan Poe

To -- (III)

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words", denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words, two foreign soft dissyllables,
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
Than even seraph harper, Israfel,
(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,")
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear n...

Edgar Allan Poe