Edgar Allan Poe-Dreams

Edgar Allan Poe

Dreams

    Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
    My spirit not awakening, till the beam
    Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
    Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
    'Twere better than the cold reality
    Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
    And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
    A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
    But should it be- that dream eternally
    Continuing- as dreams have been to me
    In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
    'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
    For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
    I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
    And loveliness,- have left my very heart
    In climes of my imagining, apart
    From mine own home, with beings that have been
    Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
    'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
    From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
    Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
    Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
    Its image on my spirit- or the moon
    Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
    Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
    That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.

    I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
    I have been happy- and I love the theme:
    Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
    As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
    Of semblance with reality, which brings
    To the delirious eye, more lovely things
    Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
    Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

Edgar Allan Poe-The City In the Sea

Edgar Allan Poe

The City In the Sea

      Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
      In a strange city lying alone
      Far down within the dim West,
      Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
      Have gone to their eternal rest.
      There shrines and palaces and towers
      (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
      Resemble nothing that is ours.
      Around, by lifting winds forgot,
      Resignedly beneath the sky
      The melancholy waters lie.

      No rays from the holy heaven come down
      On the long night-time of that town;
      But light from out the lurid sea
      Streams up the turrets silently-
      Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
      Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
      Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
      Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
      Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
      Up many and many a marvellous shrine
      Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
      The viol, the violet, and the vine.
      Resignedly beneath the sky
      The melancholy waters lie.
      So blend the turrets and shadows there
      That all seem pendulous in air,
      While from a proud tower in the town
      Death looks gigantically down.

      There open fanes and gaping graves
      Yawn level with the luminous waves;
      But not the riches there that lie
      In each idol's diamond eye-
      Not the gaily-jewelled dead
      Tempt the waters from their bed;
      For no ripples curl, alas!
      Along that wilderness of glass-
      No swellings tell that winds may be
      Upon some far-off happier sea-
      No heavings hint that winds have been
      On seas less hideously serene.

      But lo, a stir is in the air!
      The wave- there is a movement there!
      As if the towers had thrust aside,
      In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
      As if their tops had feebly given
      A void within the filmy Heaven.
      The waves have now a redder glow-
      The hours are breathing faint and low-
      And when, amid no earthly moans,
      Down, down that town shall settle hence,
      Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
      Shall do it reverence.