Part 7 (1/2)
And the people--ah, the people, They that dwell up in the steeple, 80 All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling In that m.u.f.fled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone-- 85 They are neither man nor woman, They are neither brute nor human, They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 90 Rolls A paean from the bells; And his merry bosom swells With the paean of the bells, And he dances, and he yells: 95 Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the paean of the bells, Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, 100 In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells-- To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time, 105 As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells: To the tolling of the bells, 110 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells-- To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
ANNABEL LEE
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 5 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; 10 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 15 My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. 20
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, 25 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, 30 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; 35 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 her sepulchre there by the sea, 40 In her tomb by the sounding sea.
TO MY MOTHER
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find among their burning terms of love-- None so devotional as that of ”Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-- 5 You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts where Death installed you In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother, my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you 10 Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
ELDORADO
Gayly bedight, A gallant knight, In suns.h.i.+ne and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, 5 In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old, This knight so bold, And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found 10 No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow: 15 ”Shadow,” said he, ”Where can it be, This land of Eldorado?”
”Over the Mountains Of the Moon, 20 Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied, ”If you seek for Eldorado!”
TALES
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne.
Beranger
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been pa.s.sing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium: the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there _are_ combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the a.n.a.lysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression; and acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled l.u.s.tre by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.