The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Part 23

Young flowers were whispering in melody [21]

To happy flowers that night--and tree to tree; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moon-light 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:

"Neath blue-bell or streamer-- Or tufted wild spray That keeps, from the dreamer, The moonbeam away--[22]

Bright beings! that ponder, With half-closing eyes, On the stars which your wonder Hath drawn from the skies, 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 Enc.u.mber'd with dew

The breath of those kisses That c.u.mber 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!

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, [23]

Inc.u.mbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight On the harmony there?

Ligeia! wherever 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 [24]

From the growing of gra.s.s 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--[25]

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 Whose sleep hath been taken Beneath the cold moon, As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rhythmical number Which lull'd him to rest?"

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro', Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight-- Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds afar, O death! from eye of G.o.d upon that star; Sweet was that error--sweeter still that death-- Sweet was that error--ev'n with _us_ the breath Of Science dims the mirror of our joy-- To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy-- For what (to them) availeth it to know That Truth is Falsehood--or that Bliss is Woe?

Sweet was their death--with them to die was rife With the last ecstasy of satiate life-- Beyond that death no immortality-- But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"-- And there--oh! may my weary spirit dwell-- Apart from Heaven's Eternity--and yet how far from h.e.l.l! [26]

What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?

But two: they fell: for heaven no grace imparts To those who hear not for their beating hearts.

A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover-- O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?

Unguided Love hath fallen--'mid "tears of perfect moan." [27]

He was a goodly spirit--he who fell: A wanderer by mossy-mantled well-- A gazer on the lights that shine above-- A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love: What wonder? for each star is eye-like there, And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair-- And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.

The night had found (to him a night of wo) Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo-- Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.

Here sate he with his love--his dark eye bent With eagle gaze along the firmament: Now turn'd it upon her--but ever then It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

"Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!

How lovely 'tis to look so far away!

She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve I left her gorgeous halls--nor mourned to leave, That eve--that eve--I should remember well-- The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos with a spell On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-- And on my eyelids--O, the heavy light!

How drowsily it weighed them into night!

On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: But O, that light!--I slumbered--Death, the while, Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept--or knew that he was there.

"The last spot of Earth's...o...b..I trod upon Was a proud temple called the Parthenon; [28]

More beauty clung around her columned wall Then even thy glowing bosom beats withal, [29]

And when old Time my wing did disenthral Thence sprang I--as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour.

What time upon her airy bounds I hung, One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view-- Tenantless cities of the desert too!

Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then, And half I wished to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be?

A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-- And greener fields than in yon world above, And woman's loveliness--and pa.s.sionate love."

"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Failed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft, [30]

Perhaps my brain grew dizzy--but the world I left so late was into chaos hurled, Sprang from her station, on the winds apart, And rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.

Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar, And fell--not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'

Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!

Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to ours-- Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red Daedalion on the timid Earth."

"We came--and to thy Earth--but not to us Be given our lady's bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod _She_ grants to us as granted by her G.o.d-- But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world!

Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea-- But when its glory swelled upon the sky, As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled--as doth Beauty then!"

Thus in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day.

They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

1839.

[Footnote 1: A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens--attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpa.s.sing that of Jupiter--then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.]

[Footnote 2: On Santa Maura--olim Deucadia.]

[Footnote 3: Sappho.]

[Footnote 4: This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort.

The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.]

[Footnote: Clytia--the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol--which turns continually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.--'B. de St. Pierre.']

[Footnote 6: There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloe without p.r.i.c.kles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odor of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July--you then perceive it gradually open its petals--expand them--fade and die.--'St. Pierre'.]

[Footnote 7: There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet--thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river.]

[Footnote 8: The Hyacinth.]

[Footnote 9: It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves the cradle of his childhood.]

[Footnote 10: And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints.--'Rev. St. John.']