The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Part 22

SONNET--TO SCIENCE.

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green gra.s.s, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

1829.

Private reasons--some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson's first poems [1]--have induced me, after some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed 'verbatim'--without alteration from the original edition--the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.--E. A. P. (1845).

[Footnote 1: This refers to the accusation brought against Edgar Poe that he was a copyist of Tennyson.--Ed.]

AL AARAAF. [1]

PART I.

O! nothing earthly save the ray (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye, As in those gardens where the day Springs from the gems of Circa.s.sy-- O! nothing earthly save the thrill Of melody in woodland rill-- Or (music of the pa.s.sion-hearted) Joy's voice so peacefully departed That like the murmur in the sh.e.l.l, Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-- O! nothing of the dross of ours-- Yet all the beauty--all the flowers That list our Love, and deck our bowers-- Adorn yon world afar, afar-- The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace--for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns--a temporary rest-- An oasis in desert of the blest.

Away away--'mid seas of rays that roll Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul-- The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense) Can struggle to its destin'd eminence-- To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode, And late to ours, the favour'd one of G.o.d-- But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm, She throws aside the sceptre--leaves the helm, And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns, Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth, (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star, Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar, It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt), She look'd into Infinity--and knelt.

Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled-- Fit emblems of the model of her world-- Seen but in beauty--not impeding sight-- Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-- A wreath that twined each starry form around, And all the opal'd air in color bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head On the fair Capo Deucato [2], and sprang So eagerly around about to hang Upon the flying footsteps of--deep pride-- Of her who lov'd a mortal--and so died [3].

The Sephalica, budding with young bees, Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees: And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd [4]-- Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd All other loveliness: its honied dew (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, And fell on gardens of the unforgiven In Trebizond--and on a sunny flower So like its own above that, to this hour, It still remaineth, torturing the bee With madness, and unwonted reverie: In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief Disconsolate linger--grief that hangs her head, Repenting follies that full long have fled, Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair: Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light She fears to perfume, perfuming the night: And Clytia [5] pondering between many a sun, While pettish tears adown her petals run: And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth [6]-- And died, ere scarce exalted into birth, Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king: And Valisnerian lotus thither flown [7]

From struggling with the waters of the Rhone: And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante [8]!

Isola d'oro!--Fior di Levante!

And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever [9]

With Indian Cupid down the holy river-- Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given To bear the G.o.ddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven [10]:

"Spirit! that dwellest where, In the deep sky, The terrible and fair, In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue-- The boundary of the star Which turneth at the view Of thy barrier and thy bar-- Of the barrier overgone By the comets who were cast From their pride, and from their throne To be drudges till the last-- To be carriers of fire (The red fire of their heart) With speed that may not tire And with pain that shall not part-- Who livest--_that_ we know-- In Eternity--we feel-- But the shadow of whose brow What spirit shall reveal?

Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace, Thy messenger hath known Have dream'd for thy Infinity A model of their own [11]-- Thy will is done, O G.o.d!

The star hath ridden high Thro' many a tempest, but she rode Beneath thy burning eye; And here, in thought, to thee-- In thought that can alone Ascend thy empire and so be A partner of thy throne-- By winged Fantasy [12], My emba.s.sy is given, Till secrecy shall knowledge be In the environs of Heaven."

She ceas'd--and buried then her burning cheek Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek A shelter from the fervor of His eye; For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirr'd not--breath'd not--for a voice was there How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."

Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call "Silence"--which is the merest word of all.

All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things Flap shadowy sounds from the visionary wings-- But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high The eternal voice of G.o.d is pa.s.sing by, And the red winds are withering in the sky!

"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run [13], Link'd to a little system, and one sun-- Where all my love is folly, and the crowd Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud, The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?) What tho' in worlds which own a single sun The sands of time grow dimmer as they run, 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 [14], And wing to other worlds another light!

Divulge the secrets of thy emba.s.sy 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 Therasaean reign [15].

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' uuburthen'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 [16]

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 And rays from G.o.d 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 grayish green That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave-- And every sculptured cherub thereabout That from his marble dwelling peered out, Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche-- Achaian statues in a world so rich?

Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis [17]-- From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss Of beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, the wave [18]

Is now upon thee--but too late to save!

Sound loves to revel in a summer night: Witness the murmur of the gray twilight That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco [19], 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? [20]

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; The 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!