78 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
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1848
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TO HELEN
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by Edgar Allan Poe
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I saw thee once- once only- years ago:
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I must not say how many- but not many.
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It was a July midnight; and from out
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A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
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Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
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There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
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With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
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Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
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Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
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Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
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Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
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That gave out, in return for the love-light,
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Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
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Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
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That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
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By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
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Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
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I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
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Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
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And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow!
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Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
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Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
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That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
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To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
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No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
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Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!- oh, God!
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How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
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Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked-
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And in an instant all things disappeared.
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(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
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The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
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The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
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The happy flowers and the repining trees,
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Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
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Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
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All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
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Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
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Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
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I saw but them- they were the world to me!
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I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
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Saw only them until the moon went down.
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What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
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Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
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How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
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How silently serene a sea of pride!
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How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
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How fathomless a capacity for love!
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But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
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Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
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And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
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Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
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They would not go- they never yet have gone;
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Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
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They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
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They follow me- they lead me through the years.
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They are my ministers- yet I their slave.
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Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
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My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
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And purified in their electric fire,
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And sanctified in their elysian fire.
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They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
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And are far up in Heaven- the stars I kneel to
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In the sad, silent watches of my night;
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While even in the meridian glare of day
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I see them still- two sweetly scintillant
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Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
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-THE END-
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