The Works of Edgar Allan Poe – Volume 5

Ligeia!  whatever
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 —
[30 - I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I amnow unable to obtain and quote from memory: – “The verieessence and, as it were, springe-heade, and origine of allmusiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees ofthe forest do make when they growe.”]The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
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
[31 - The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there bemoonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixtylines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is,however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from ClaudHalcro – in whose mouth I admired its effect:O! were there an island,Tho’ ever so wildWhere woman might smile, andNo man be beguil’d, &c.] Have slept with the bee —
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 rythmical 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 God 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 ecstacy 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 —
[32 - * With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven andHell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attainthat tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to becharacteristic of heavenly enjoyment.Un no rompido sueno —Un dia puro – allegre – libreQuiera —Libre de amor – de zelo —De odio – de esperanza – de rezelo. —Luis Ponce de Leon.Sorrow is not excluded from “Al Aaraaf,” but it is thatsorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, andwhich, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium. Thepassionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spiritattendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures —the price of which, to those souls who make choice of “AlAaraaf” as their residence after life, is final death andannihilation.]Apart from Heaven’s Eternity – and yet how far from Hell!

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?
[33 - There be tears of perfect moanWept for thee in Helicon. —Milton.]Unguided Love hath fallen – ‘mid “tears of perfect moan.”

He was a goodly spirit – he who fell:
A wanderer by moss-y-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.

“Iante, dearest, see!  how dim that ray!
How lovely ‘tis to look so far away!
She seem’d not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls – nor mourn’d to leave.
That eve – that eve – I should remember well —
The sun-ray dropp’d, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th’Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall —
And on my eye-lids – O the heavy light!