A Classic Crime Collection (36 page)

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light 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!

L
ENORE
¹

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll!—a saintly
soul floats on the Stygian
²
river;

And, Guy De Vere,
³
hast
thou
no tear?—weep now or never more!

See on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—

A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!

How
shall
the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung

By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”

Peccavimus;
⁴
but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—

For her, the fair and
debonnaire,
⁵
that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes—

The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.

Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!

Let
no
bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnèd Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—

From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.

T
O
H
ELEN
¹

I saw thee once
²
—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,
³
enchanted

By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank

I saw thee half reclining; while the moon

Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,

And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate that, on this July midnight—

Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),

That bade me pause before that garden-gate,

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?

No footsteps stirred; the hated world all slept,

Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God!

How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)

Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked—

And in an instant all things disappeared.

(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

The pearly lustre of the moon went out;

The mossy banks and the meandering paths,

The happy flowers and the repining trees,

Were seen no more: the very roses’ odors

Died in the arms of the adoring airs.

All—all expired save thee—save less than thou:

Save only the divine light in thine eyes—

Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.

I saw but them—they were the world to me.

I saw but them—saw only them for hours—

Saw only them until the moon went down.

What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!

How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

How daring an ambition! yet how deep—

How fathomless a capacity for love!

But
now, at length dear Dian
⁴
sank from sight,

Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees

Didst glide away.
Only thine eyes remained.

They
would not
go—they never yet have gone.

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,

They
have not left me (as my hopes have) since.

They follow me—they lead me through the years.

They are my ministers—yet I their slave.

Their office is to illumine and enkindle—

My duty,
to be saved
by their bright light,

And purified in their electric fire,

And
sanctified in their Elysian fire.
⁵

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),

And are far up in heaven—the stars I kneel to

In the sad, silent watches of my night;

While even in the meridian glare of day

I see them still—two sweetly scintillant

Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

U
LALUME
¹

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves
they were crisped and sere
²
—

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,
³

In the
misty mid region of Weir
⁴
—

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,
⁵
my Soul.

These were days when my heart was volcanic

As the scoriac
⁶
rivers that roll—

As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
⁷

In the ultimate climes of the pole—

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek

In
the realms of the boreal
⁸
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 journeyed 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
⁹
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
¹⁰
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
¹¹

To point us the path to the skies

To the Lethean
¹²
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 Sibylic
¹³
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.”

T
HE
B
ELLS
¹

I

Hear the sledges
²
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 seems to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic
³
rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation
⁴
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
⁵

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
⁶
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 melody 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—