AT midnight, in the month of June, The rosemary nods upon the grave; 10 20 30 Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye, While the pale sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep! 41 Soft may the worms about her creep! LENORE 2 60 1831, AH, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! 2 The first and third stanzas are supposed to be spoken by the wretches,' relatives or false friends of Lenore; the second and fourth stanzas by Guy De Vere, her lover. In this one case, perhaps, Poe's latest version is not so good as an earlier one. The form of Lenore published in 1843 is given below for comparison. Ah, broken is the golden bowl! And, Guy De Vere, Hast thou no tear? Weep now or nevermore! See, on yon drear And rigid bier, Low lies thy love Lenore! Yon heir, whose cheeks of pallid hue Sees only, through Their crocodile dew, A vacant coronet False friends! 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 For her most wrong'd of all the dead With young hope at her side, And thou art wild For the dear child That should have been thy bride For her, the fair And debonair, That now so lowly lies 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 Let no bell toll! Lest her sweet soul, Amid its hallow'd mirth, Should catch the note As it doth float Up from the damned earth To friends above, from fiends below, Th' indignant ghost is riven From grief and moan To a gold throne Beside the King of Heaven !' It seems probable that Poe was influenced by the success of The Raven' to rearrange Lenore' in somewhat similar lines of even length. In the text above I have given the last stanza of the puem as it stands in the Lorimer Graham copy - a copy of the edition of 1845, corrected by Poe's own hand. In the edition of 1845, uncorrected, the stanz reads as follows: Avaunt!-avaunt! 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.' Let no bell toll then!-lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth! 1 And I to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I up raise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! It is interesting to note that in this case, and perhaps in this case only, Poe, after changing considerably a passage of his work, later returned to a previous version. The arrangement of ideas in his corrected copy of this fourth stanza is much closer to the 1843 version than to that of 1845. 'That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?' Peccavimus; 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 debonair, that now s0 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.' 1831, 1843, 1845. THE VALLEY OF UNREST ONCE it smiled a silent dell Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! Ever drew down from out the quiet stars! Here, where a hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 20 AT morn at noon at twilight dim TO ONE IN PARADISE 2 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, 1835. Originally in the tale, The Visionary' (now called 'The Assignation '). There, and in most later versions, the first line reads, Thou wast that all to me, love... take! 3 How many memories of what radiant hours At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! How many visions of a maiden that is No more -no more upon thy verdant slopes ! No more! alas, that magical sad sound Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more— Thy memory no more! Accursed ground Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore, O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante ! 'Isola d'oro ! Fior di Levante !' THE HAUNTED PALACE + IN the greenest of our valleys Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair! 1837. 3 Je souris à ses noms d'Isola d'oro, de Fior di Levante. Ce nom de fleur me rappelle que l'hyacinthe était originaire de l'île de Zante, et que cette ile reçut son nom de la plante qu'elle avait portée. (CHATEAUBRIAND, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem.) This poem is a part of Poe's tale of the Fall of the House of Usher,' which should be read entire. Lowell calls it one of the most beautiful of his poems,' and goes on: 'It loses greatly by being taken out of its rich and appropriate setting. We know no modern poet who might not have been justly proud of it. . . . Was ever the wreck and desolation of a noble mind so musically sung?' By the "Haunted Palace" I mean to imply a mind haunted by phantoms — a disordered brain,' says Poe himself, in a letter in which he also accuses Longfellow of plagiarizing from this poem in the Beleaguered City.' |