The Raven and Other Selected Poems

Автор

Эдгар Аллан По

Год написания книги

2019

<< 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... 18 >>

На страницу:

Перейти

11 из 18

Настройки чтения

Размер шрифта

Высота строк

Поля

For they were childish and upright—

Pure—as her young example taught:

Why did I leave it, and, adrift,

Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age—and love—together—

Roaming the forest, and the wild;

My breast her shield in wintry weather—

And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.

And she would mark the opening skies,

I saw no Heaven—but in her eyes.

Young Love’s first lesson is—the heart:

For ’mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

When, from our little cares apart,

And laughing at her girlish wiles,

I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,

And pour my spirit out in tears—

There was no need to speak the rest—

No need to quiet any fears

Of her—who asked no reason why,

But turned on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love

My spirit struggled with, and strove

When, on the mountain peak, alone,

Ambition lent it a new tone—

I had no being—but in thee:

The world, and all it did contain

In the earth—the air—the sea—

Its joy—its little lot of pain

That was new pleasure—the ideal,

Dim, vanities of dreams by night—

And dimmer nothings which were real—

(Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)

Parted upon their misty wings,

And, so, confusedly, became

Thine image and—a name—a name!

Two separate—yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious—have you known

The passion, father? You have not:

A cottager, I marked a throne

Of half the world as all my own,

And murmured at such lowly lot—

But, just like any other dream,

Upon the vapor of the dew

My own had past, did not the beam

Of beauty which did while it thro’

The minute—the hour—the day—oppress

My mind with double loveliness.

We walked together on the crown

Of a high mountain which looked down

Afar from its proud natural towers