Eulalie

I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

Ah, less- less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl-
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless
curl.

Now Doubt- now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye. 

Eulalie - Edgar Allan Poe

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.

Romance - Edgar Allan Poe  

Dream Land

By a route obscure and lonely,
    Haunted by ill angels only,
    Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
    On a black throne reigns upright,
    I have reached these lands but newly
    From an ultimate dim Thule --
    From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
          Out of SPACE -- out of TIME.

    Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
    And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
    With forms that no man can discover
    For the dews that drip all over;
    Mountains toppling evermore
    Into seas without a shore;
    Seas that restlessly aspire,
    Surging, unto skies of fire;
    Lakes that endlessly outspread
    Their lone waters -- lone and dead, --
    Their still waters -- still and chilly
    With the snows of the lolling lily.

    By the lakes that thus outspread
    Their lone waters, lone and dead, --
    Their sad waters, sad and chilly
    With the snows of the lolling lily, --
    By the mountains -- near the river
    Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, --
    By the grey woods, -- by the swamp
    Where the toad and the newt encamp, --
    By the dismal tarns and pools
            Where dwell the Ghouls, --
    By each spot the most unholy --
    In each nook most melancholy, --
    There the traveller meets aghast
    Sheeted Memories of the Past --
    Shrouded forms that start and sigh
    As they pass the wanderer by --
    White-robed forms of friends long given,
    In agony, to the Earth -- and Heaven.

    For the heart whose woes are legion
    'Tis a peaceful, soothing region --
    For the spirit that walks in shadow
    'Tis -- oh 'tis an Eldorado!
    But the traveller, travelling through it,
    May not -- dare not openly view it;
    Never its mysteries are exposed
    To the weak human eye unclosed;
    So wills its King, who hath forbid
    The uplifting of the fringed lid;
    And thus the sad Soul that here passes
    Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

    By a route obscure and lonely,
    Haunted by ill angels only,
    Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
    On a black throne reigns upright,
    I have wandered home but newly
    From this ultimate dim Thule.

Dream Land - Edgar Alan Poe

A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
    Brightly expressive as the twins of Lœda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
    Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines! -- they hold a treasure
    Divine -- a talisman -- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure --
    The words -- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
    And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
    If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
    Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
    Of poets, by poets -- as the name is a poet’s, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
    Like the knight Pinto -- Mendez Ferdinando --
Still form a synonym for Truth. -- Cease trying!
    You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

 by Edgar Allan Poe

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.”

To One in Paradise -  Edgar Allan Poe

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.

“Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” -  Edgar Allan Poe

A Dream Within A Dream

 Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

 A Dream Within A Dream 

 Edgar Allan Poe