William Wordsworth1770-1850

LONDON, 1802

MILTON1! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen2

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower3, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

1 great poet, wrote “Paradise Lost” Wordsworth sees him as a muse or inspiration2 a bog or swamp

3 the hall and bower were the main rooms of large Anglo-Saxon houses

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON

THE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!1

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton2 blow his wreathed horn.

1 a favor requested2 sea gods in Greek myth

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 5 Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: 10 Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 15 A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, 20 They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder--everlastingly. Dear Child1! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom2 all the year; And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

1 Wordsworth’s daughter, Caroline2 in the presence of God

Percy Bysshe Shelley1792-1822

OZYMANDIAS1

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal these words appear:“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.

1 Greek name for Ramses II of Egypt who ruled from 1292-1225 B.C. He was noted for building palaces and Temples and may statues of himself.

MUTABILITY

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;    How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,Streaking the darkness radiantly! -- yet soon     Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres1, whose dissonant strings     Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings    One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. -- A dream has power to poison sleep;     We rise. -- One wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;     Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! -- For, be it joy or sorrow,    The path of its departure still is free: Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;     Nought may endure but Mutability.

1 wind harps

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHYThe fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for everWith a sweet emotion;Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one another's being mingle -Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heavenAnd the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdain'd its brother:And the sunlight clasps the earth,And the moonbeams kiss the sea -What are all these kissings worth,If thou kiss not me?

Notes for ODE TO THE WEST WIND

1 the reviving south wind of spring2 a trumpet with a clear, ringing tone3 messengers4 a priestess of Dionysus, Greek god of wine and revelry5 volcanic lava6 an ancient Roman resort7 surfaces8 that is, something impossible to achieve9 Aeolian lute that makes musical sounds when the wind blows through it

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring1 shall blow

Her clarion2 o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)With living hues and odors plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels3 of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine aery surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20

Of some fierce Maenad4, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height,The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre,Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice5 isle in Baiae's bay6,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic's level powers7

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan thou, O uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50Scarce seemed a vision8; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowedOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre9, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 60Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70

John Keats1795-1821

BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEADFAST AS THOU ART

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--     Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,    Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite1,The moving waters at their priestlike task    Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,    Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

1 hermit

TO ONE WHO HAS BEEN LONG IN CITY PENT

To one who has been long in city pent,     'Tis very sweet to look into the fair    And open face of heaven,--to breathe a prayerFull in the smile of the blue firmament.Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,    Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair    Of wavy grass, and reads a debonairAnd gentle tale of love and languishment?Returning home at evening, with an ear    Catching the notes of Philomel1,--an eyeWatching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,    He mourns that day so soon has glided by:E'en like the passage of an angel's tear    That falls through the clear ether2 silently.

1 the nightingale2 sky

TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;       To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,And still more, later flowers for the bees,Until they think warm days will never cease,       For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may findThee sitting careless on a granary floor,   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook       Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep   Steady thy laden head across a brook;   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn   Among the river sallows1, borne aloft       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn2;   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft3;       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

1 willow trees2 region3 small enclosed field

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,     Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus express    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape    Of deities or mortals, or of both,        In Tempe1 or the dales of Arcady2?    What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?        What pipes and timbrels3? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;        Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,        For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed    Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;And, happy melodist, unwearied,    For ever piping songs for ever new;More happy love! more happy, happy love!    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,        For ever panting, and for ever young;All breathing human passion far above,    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,        A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?What little town by river or sea shore,    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,        Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?And, little town, thy streets for evermore    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell        Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic4 shape! Fair attitude! with brede5

    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,With forest branches and the trodden weed;    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thoughtAs doth eternity: Cold Pastoral6!    When old age shall this generation waste,        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woeThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all        Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

1 a beautiful valley in Greece2 a simple, rustic region in Greece3 ancient tambourines4 Grecian shape of elegant simplicity and grace5 embroidery6 poem in marble

.

William Blake1757-1827

THE LAMB

   Little lamb, who made thee?   Does thou know who made thee,Gave thee life, and bid thee feedBy the stream and o'er the mead;Gave thee clothing of delight,Softest clothing, woolly, bright;Gave thee such a tender voice,Making all the vales rejoice?   Little lamb, who made thee?   Does thou know who made thee?

   Little lamb, I'll tell thee;   Little lamb, I'll tell thee:He is called by thy name,For He calls Himself a Lamb.He is meek, and He is mild,He became a little child.I a child, and thou a lamb,We are called by His name.   Little lamb, God bless thee!   Little lamb, God bless thee!

THE TYGER1

Tyger, tyger, burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eye2

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what artCould twist the sinews of thy heart?And, when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread graspDare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears3,Did He smile His work to see?Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeDare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1 Blake’s unique spelling is retained; it seems to emphasize The symbolic quality of the animal. 2 pronounced “ee” to rhyme with “symmetry” in line 43 These lines suggest some cosmic disaster associated with

divine creativity. In other poems by Blake, these images refer more clearly to the angels who threw down their spears and wept in despair when they fell from Heaven with Satan

THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE  "Love seeketh not itself to please,   Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives it ease,   And builds a heaven in hell's despair."  So sang a little clod of clay,   Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a pebble of the brook   Warbled out these metres meet:  "Love seeketh only Self to please,   To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease,   And builds a hell in heaven's despite1."

1 contempt or scorn

A POISON TREE

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with my smiles And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

Walt Whitman1819-1892

A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER

A noiseless, patient spider,I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

SONG OF MYSELF 1 I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never Forgotten1, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.

1 certain creeds and schools of thought for a while sufficed But are now retiring to the back of the poet’s mind

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

from SONG OF MYSELF 21

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation1 or pride, We have had ducking and deprecating2 about enough, I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night…

1 here, expansion2 disapproving

Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772-1834

KUBLA KHAN1

Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.

Almost as well know as this poem are the circumstances of its composition. According to Coleridge, he had been reading about the building of a summer palace by the great 13th Century Mongolian ruler, Kubla Khan, when he fell asleep in his chair as a result of an opium overdose. As he slept, he said, “the images [of this poem] rose up before him as things…without any…conscious effort.” On awaking he began writing down the poem but was interrupted at line 54 and was afterwards unable to remember the rest. The result was a “fragment,” he said, “of a vision in a dream.”

In Xanadu2 did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 20Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! 30

The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer3

In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, 40 And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora4. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 50Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

1 Evidence from his manuscripts show that Coleridge was well known to be a recreational user of laudanum, a drink made from opium and alcohol.2. an indefinite area of Tartary in Asia.3 a musical instrument with metallic wires played with small hammers.4 legendary earthly paradise like Kubla Khan’s.

George Gordon, Lord Byron1788-1824

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

this poem was inspired by Lady Wilmot Horton, Byron’s cousin by marriage, who arrived at a party wearing a black dress with spangles.

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect1 and her eyes:Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

1 appearance

SO WE’LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING

So, we'll go no more a roving  So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the hearth must pause to breathe,  And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,  And the days return too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving  By the light of the moon.

THEY SAY THAT HOPE IS HAPPINESSFelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas1

They say that Hope is happiness— But genuine Love must prize the past;And mem’ry wakes the thoughts that bless; They rose the first—they set the last.

And all that mem’ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be:And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory.

Alas! it is delusion all— The future cheats us from afar:Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.

1 Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things (Virgil)

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR

'Tis time the heart should be unmoved,    Since others it hath ceased to move:Yet, though I cannot be beloved,                Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;    The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the grief               Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys    Is lone as some volcanic isle;No torch is kindled at its blaze--               A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,    The exalted portion of the painAnd power of love, I cannot share,               But wear the chain.

But 'tis not thus - and 'tis not here--    Such thoughts should shake my soul nor now,Where glory decks the hero's bier,               Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, and the field,    Glory and Greece, around me see!The Spartan, borne upon his shield,                Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece - she is awake!)    Awake, my spirit! Think through whomThy life-blood tracks its parent lake,                And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down,     Unworthy manhood! - unto theeIndifferent should the smile or frown                Of beauty be.

If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?    The land of honourable deathIs here: - up to the field, and give                Away thy breath!

Seek out - less often sought than found--    A soldier's grave, for thee the best;Then look around, and choose thy ground,                And take thy rest.

Edgar Allan Poe1809-1849

ELDORADOSpanish for golden palace and was the fabulous city of gold sought by the Spanish explorers. By Poe’s day it had come to be a common name for California because of the discovery of gold there. But of course Poe is using the word symbolically as “the place of heart’s desire.”

Gaily bedight, A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song,In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old- This knight so bold-And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength Failed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow- “Shadow,” said he, “Where can it be-This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the Mountains Of the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,” The shade replied-“If you seek for Eldorado!”

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAMPoe once wrote that “it is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.”

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

I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand-How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep- while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?

ANNABEL LEE1

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the side of the sea2.

1 symbolic of the bride of death2 the last line originally read: “In her tomb by the

sounding sea”; most literary critics prefer the original version.

TO HELEN1

“To Helen” is often praised as a near-perfect statement of the Romantics’ idealized love of pure beauty. Poe claimed that the mother of a school friend was the inspiration for Helen. However, the poem is not about any actual woman but about an ideal of beauty that can exist only in the imagination.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean2 barks of yore,That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth3 hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs4 have brought me home To the glory that was GreeceAnd the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche5, from the regions which Are Holy Land!

1 Helen of Troydaughter of Zeus and Leda, symbolizes the eternal female beauty. Elopes with Paris to Troy and thus was the cause of the Trojan War.2 defined as victorious here, or may refer to one of several ancient cities of Nicea, on of which was liked to Dionysus.3 an adjective used in Homeric poems to describe hair that was hyacinthine usually meaning golden and wavy.4 manner or bearing of the fountain nymph5 Greek goddess of the soul