Collected Works of Poe, Edgar Allan Poe [best mobile ebook reader TXT] 📗

Seinem Schosskinde Der Phantasie. - _G�ethe_. � Sightless - too small to be seen - _Legge_.

Yet thine is my resplendency, so given To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven. Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly, With all thy train, athwart the moony sky - *Apart - like fire-flies in Sicilian night, And wing to other worlds another light ! Divulge the secrets of thy embassy To the proud orbs that twinkle - and so be To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man !"

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night, The single-mooned eve ! - on Earth we plight Our faith to one love - and one moon adore - The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain �Her way - but left not yet her Theras�an reign. * I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies ; - they will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre, into innumerable radii. � Theras�a, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners. Part II.

HIGH on a mountain of enamell'd head - Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed Of giant pasturage lying at his ease, Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven" What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven - Of rosy head, that towering far away Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray Of sunken suns at eve - at noon of night, While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light - Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air, Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile Far down upon the wave that sparkled there, And nursled the young mountain in its lair. *Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall Of their own dissolution, while they die - Adorning then the dwellings of the sky. A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down, Sat gently on these columns as a crown - A window of one circular diamond, there, Look'd out above into the purple air,

* Some star which, from the ruin'd roof Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance, did fall. - _Milton._

And rays from God shot down that meteor chain And hallow'd all the beauty twice again, Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring, Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing. But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this world : that greyish green That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave - And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout That from his marble dwelling peer�d out Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche - Achaian statues in a world so rich ? *Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis - From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss �Of beautiful Gomorrah ! O, the wave Is now upon thee - but too late to save !

Sound loves to revel in a summer night : Witness the murmur of the grey twilight * Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, "Je connois bien l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines - mais un palais erig� au pied d'une chaine des rochers sterils - peut il �tre un chef d'�vure des arts !" [_Voila les arguments de M. Voltaire_.] � "Oh ! the wave" - Ula Degusi is the Turkish appellation; but, on its own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or Almotanah. There were undoubtedly more than two cities engluphed in the "dead sea." In the valley of Siddim were five - Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed) - but the last is out of all reason. It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At _any_ season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the 'Asphaltites.'

*That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco, Of many a wild star-gazer long ago - That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim. And sees the darkness coming as a cloud - �Is not its form - its voice - most palpable and loud ?

But what is this ? - it cometh - and it brings A music with it - 'tis the rush of wings - A pause - and then a sweeping, falling strain And Nesace is in her halls again. From the wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart ; And zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. Within the centre of that hall to breathe She paus'd and panted, Zanthe ! all beneath, The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there ! � Young flowers were whispering in melody To happy flowers that night - and tree to tree ; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell ; Yet silence came upon material things - Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings - And sound alone that from the spirit sprang Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang : * Eyraco - Chaldea. � I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stole over the horizon. � Fairies use flowers for their charactery. - _Merry Wives of Windsor_. [William Shakespeare] " 'Neath blue-bell or streamer - Or tufted wild spray That keeps, from the dreamer, *The moonbeam away - Bright beings ! that ponder, With half closing eyes, On the stars which your wonder Hath drawn from the skies, [in the original, this line is slightly out of alignment] Till they glance thro' the shade, and Come down to your brow Like -- eyes of the maiden Who calls on you now - Arise ! from your dreaming In violet bowers, To duty beseeming These star-litten hours - And shake from your tresses Encumber'd with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too - (O ! how, without you, Love ! Could angels be blest ?) Those kisses of true love That lull'd ye to rest ! Up ! - shake from your wing Each hindering thing : The dew of the night - It would weigh down your flight ; And true love caresses - O ! leave them apart ! * In Scripture is this passage - "The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night." It is perhaps not generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently alludes.

They are light on the tresses, But lead on the heart.

Ligeia ! Ligeia ! My beautiful one ! Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, O ! is it thy will On the breezes to toss ? Or, capriciously still, *Like the lone Albatross, Incumbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight On the harmony there ?

Ligeia ! whatever Thy image may be, No magic shall sever Thy music from thee. Thou hast bound many eyes In a dreamy sleep - But the strains still arise Which thy vigilance keep - The sound of the rain Which leaps down to the flower, And dances again In the rhythm of the shower - �The murmur that springs From the growing of grass

* The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing. � I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now unable to obtain and quote from memory : - "The verie essence and, as it were, springe-heade, and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of the forest do make when they growe."

Are the music of things - But are modell'd, alas ! - Away, then my dearest, O ! hie thee away To springs that lie clearest Beneath the moon-ray - To lone lake that smiles, In its dream of deep rest, At the many star-isles That enjewel its breast - Where wild flowers, creeping, Have mingled their shade, On its margin is sleeping Full many a maid - Some have left the cool glade, and * Have slept with the bee - Arouse them my maiden, On moorland and lea - Go ! breathe on their slumber, All softly in ear, The musical number They slumber'd to hear - For what can awaken An angel so soon

* The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud Halcro - in whose mouth I admired its effect :