Edgar Allan Poe was a writer and a literary critic. He is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and horror.
Gaily bedight,A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow,Had journeyed long,Singing a song,In search of Eldorado. But he grew old—This knight so bold—And o’er his heart a shadow—Fell as he foundNo spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado. And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow—‘Shadow,’ said he,‘Where can it be—This land of Eldorado?’ …
Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow —You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a …
Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicéan barks of yore,That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,The weary, way-worn wanderer boreTo his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon …
Thou wast all that to me, love,For which my soul did pine—A green isle in the sea, love,A fountain and a shrine,All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream to bright to last!Ah, starry Hope! that didst ariseBut to be overcast!A voice from out the Future cries,“On! on!”—but o’er …
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—Only this, and nothing more.” Ah, distinctly I …
There are some qualities—some incorporate things,That have a double life, which thus is madeA type of that twin entity which springsFrom matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.There is a two-fold Silence—sea and shore—Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,Newly with grass o’ergrown; some solemn graces,Some human memories and tearful lore,Render him terrorless: …
It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea;But …
I dwelt aloneIn a world of moan,And my soul was a stagnant tide,Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride—Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride. Ah, less—less brightThe stars of the nightThan the eyes of the radiant girl!And never a flakeThat the vapour can makeWith the moon-tints of purple and …
I Hear the sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort if Runic rhyme, To the …
THE chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy …
