The Works of Edgar Allan Poe – Volume 5

How drowsily it weigh’d them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O that light! – I slumber’d – 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 it was there.

The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon
[34 - It was entire in 1687 – the most elevated spot in Athens.]Was a proud temple call’d the Parthenon —
More beauty clung around her column’d wall
[35 - Shadowing more beauty in their airy browsThan have the white breasts of the Queen of Love. —Marlowe.]Than ev’n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
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 wish’d 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 women’s loveliness – and passionate love.”
“But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
[36 - Pennon – for pinion. —Milton.]Fail’d, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy – but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurl’d —
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And roll’d, 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 Dædalion 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 God —
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl’d
Never his fairy wing o’er fairier 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 swell’d upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,
We paus’d 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.

TAMERLANE

KIND solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme —
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell’d in —
I have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope – that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope – Oh God! I can —
Its fount is holier – more divine —
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.
O! yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again —
O! craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
Th’ undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness – a knell.

I have not always been as now:
The fever’d diadem on my brow
I claim’d and won usurpingly —
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar – this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven