The Tell-Tale Heart

  To thee the laurels belong,

  Best bard, because the wisest!

  Merrily live, and long!

  The ecstasies above

  With thy burning measures suit—

  Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,

  With the fervour of thy lute—

  Well may the stars be mute!

  Yes, Heaven is thine; but this

  Is a world of sweets and sours;

  Our flowers are merely—flowers,

  And the shadow of thy perfect bliss

  Is the sunshine of ours.

  If I could dwell

  Where Israfel

  Hath dwelt, and he where I,

  He might not sing so wildly well

  A mortal melody,

  While a bolder note than this might swell

  From my lyre within the sky.

  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 wreathéd friezes intertwine

  The voil, 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.

  The Sleeper

  At midnight, in the month of June,

  I stand beneath the mystic moon.

  An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,

  Exhales from out her golden rim,

  And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

  Upon the quiet mountain top,

  Steals drowsily and musically

  Into the universal valley.

  The rosemary nods upon the grave;

  The lily lolls upon the wave;

  Wrapping the fog about its breast,

  The ruin moulders into rest;

  Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

  A conscious slumber seems to take,

  And would not, for the world, awake.

  All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies

  Irene, with her Destinies!

  Oh, lady bright! can it be right—

  This window open to the night?

  The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

  Laughingly through the lattice drop—

  The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

  Flit through thy chamber in and out,

  And wave the curtain canopy

  So fitfully—so fearfully—

  Above the closed and fringéd lid

  Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,

  That, o’er the floor and down the wall,

  Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

  Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

  Why and what art thou dreaming here?

  Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,

  A wonder to these garden trees!

  Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

  Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

  And this all solemn silentness!

  The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,

  Which is enduring, so be deep!

  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!

  Soft may the worms about her creep!

  Far in the forest, dim and old,

  For her may some tall vault unfold—

  Some vault that oft hath flung its black

  And wingéd panels fluttering back,

  Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,

  Of her grand family funerals—

  Some sepulchre, remote, alone,

  Against whose portal she hath thrown,

  In childhood, many an idle stone—

  Some tomb from out whose sounding door

  She ne’er shall force an echo more,

  Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

  It was the dead who groaned within.

  The Valley of Unrest

  Once it smiled a silent dell

  Where the people did not dwell;

  They had gone unto the wars,

  Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

  Nightly, from their azure towers,

  To keep watch above the flowers,

  In the midst of which all day

  The red sun-light lazily lay.

  Now each visitor shall confess

  The sad valley’s restlessness.

  Nothing there is motionless—

  Nothing save the airs that brood

  Over the magic solitude.

  Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

  That palpitate like the chill seas

  Around the misty Hebrides!

  Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

  That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

  Uneasily, from morn till even,

  Over the violets there that lie

  In myriad types of the human eye—

  Over the lilies there that wave

  And weep above a nameless grave!

  They wave:—from out their fragrant tops

  Eternal dews come down in drops.

  They weep:—from off their delicate stems

  Perennial tears descend in gems.

  Lenore

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

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

  And, Guy De Vere, 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 ye 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:—yet rave not thus! but 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 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!—avaunt! to friends from fiends the indignant ghost is riven—

  From Hell unto a high estate within the utmost Heaven—

  From moan 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 damnéd

  Earth!

  And I—tonight my heart is light:—no dirge will I upraise,

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

  The Raven

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

  While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

  As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

  “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

  Only this and nothing more.”

  Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

  Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

  From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

  For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

  Nameless here for evermore.

  And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

  Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

  So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

  “’Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—

  Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

  This it is and nothing more.”

  Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

  “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

  But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

  And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

  That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

  Darkness there and nothing more.

  Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

  But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

  And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

  This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”

  Merely this and nothing more.

  Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

  Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

  “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

  Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

  Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

  ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

  Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

  In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

  Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

  But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

  Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

  Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

  Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

  By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

  “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

  Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

  Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

  Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

  Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

  Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

  For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

  Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

  Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

  With such name as “Nevermore.”

  But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

  That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

  Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

  Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

  On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

  Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

  Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

  “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

  Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

  Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

  Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

  Of ‘Never—nevermore.’ ”

  But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

  Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

  Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

  Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

  What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

  Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

  This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

  To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core:

  This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

  On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

  But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

  She shall press, ah, nevermore!

  Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

  Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

  “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

  Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

  Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

  Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

  “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

  Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

  Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

  On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

  Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

  Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

  “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

  By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both ad
ore—

  Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

  It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

  Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

  Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

  “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

  “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

  Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

  Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

  Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

  Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

  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!

  A Valentine*10

  For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

  Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,

  Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies

  Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

  Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure

  Divine—a talisman—an amulet

  That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—

  The words—the syllables! Do not forget

  The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

  And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

  Which one might not undo without a sabre,

  If one could merely comprehend the plot.

  Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

  Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus

  Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

  Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s, too.

  Its letters, although naturally lying

  Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—

  Still form a synonym for Truth.—Cease trying!