Stories
On January 19, 1809, Poe is born in the growing city of Boston. Before he reaches the age of three, however, his father deserts the family, forcing Poe to live with a foster family. He lives with John Allen, a tobacco farmer, and his wife Francis who raise him through childhood. In 1826 Poe enters the University of Virginia; but with Allen sending him barely enough money to live on, he turns to gambling. Eventually Allen withdraws Poe frim the University because of his debts. In March of 1827 he has a quarrel with Allen and enlists in the army as Edgar A. Perry, attaining the rank of sergeant major before his honorable discharge in 1829. Moving to Baltimore after his discharge, he lives with his aunt, Mrs. Marie Clemm, and her daughter Virginia. During this time he publishes two novels of poety which begin his literary career: Tamerlane and other Poems (1827) and Al Araaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems
(1829). Then, as a final attempt to gain Allen's good will, he enters the U.S. Military Academy in 1830; but after Allen remarries he concludes that he will never be reconciled or receive an inheritance. As a result, he deliberately breaks regulation to be discharged.
In 1831 he publishes Poems, including three of his best works: "To Helen", "The City in the Sea", and "Israfel". Even after this he is discouraged by his lack of recognition and begins to write short stories. "MS. Found in a Bottle" wins him a fifty dollar prize in 1833, along with the friendship of John P. Kennedy, a novelist and lawyer. Kennedy helps him get a job at the Southern Literary Magazine,
where he makes a salary of ten dollars a week--the subscriptions raise from 500 to over 3000.
On May 16, 1836, he marries his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who is not yet fourteen years old. Poe and his new wife move to New York in 1837 and spend 18 months there; during this time he publishes his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pynn (1838). Later that same year they move to Philadelphia, where Poe edits two magazines and writes significant reviews of Longfellow and Hawthorne. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) is a collection of his first 25 short stories and contains some of his greatest works, yet brings him neither recognition nor money. In 1844 they move back to New York where Poe lives until he dies in 1849. During the mid 1840's he writes and edits nearly 15 hours a day while his wife is sick from tuberculosis; she dies in 1847.
The Haunted Palace Banners yellow, glorious, golden, Wanderers in that happy valley, And all with pearl and ruby glowing But evil things, in robes of sorrow, And travellers now, within that valley, The Conqueror Worm Mimes, in the form of God on High, That mostly drama--oh, be sure, But see, amid the mimic rout Out--out are the lights--out all! The Valley of Unrest Silence A Dream Within a Dream I stand amid the roar Dream-Land Bottomless vales and boundless floods, By the lakes that thus outspread For the haart whose woes are legion By a route obscure and lonely, Eldorado But he grew old-- And, as his strength "Over the Mountains To-- A Dream Ah! what is not a dream by day That holy drem, that holy dream What though that light, thro' storm and night, Spirits of the Dead Be silent in that solitude The night, tho' clear, shall frown. As a burning and a fever The breeze--the breath of God--is still, Imitation Alone The Raven Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing, Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
flutter, Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
devil!-- "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
devil! "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked,
upstarting-- And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace--
Radiant palace--reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion--
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
On its roof did float and flow,
(This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits mmoving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
Was the fair palace-door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!--for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home, the glory
That blushed and blooned
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh--but smile no more.
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedlight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breaathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly--
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vasst formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes doen with the ruch of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell:
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless--
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stired those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye--
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:--from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:--from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
There are some qualities--some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a twofold Silence--sea and shore--
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and teaarful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clast?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule--
From a wild wierd clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of Space--out of Time.
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters--lone and dead,--
Their still waters--still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
Their lone waters, lone and dead,--
Their sad water, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,--
By the mountains--near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--
By the gray woods,--by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,--
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,--
By each spot the most unholy--
In each nook most melancholy,--
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past--
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the waanderer by--
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--
For the sprit that walks inn shadow
'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not--dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who has forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wondered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
Gaily bedlight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
This knight so bold--
Ando'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow--
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be--
This land of Eldorado?"
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shadow replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath little of earth in it--
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:--
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer by.
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed;
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-heared.
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him, with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
So trembled from afar--
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?
Thy soul shall find itseld alone
'Mid dark thoguhts ot the graytombstone--
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Which is not lonelliness, for then
The sspirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.
And the stars shall not look down
From their thrones in the Heaven
With light like Hope to mortals given;
But their red orbs, without beam,
To they weariness shall seem
Which would cling to the forever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish--
Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more--like dew-drops from the grass.
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy--shadowy--yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token,--
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride--
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw--I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
Ans all I lov'd, I loved alone.
Then--in my childhood--in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From ev'ry wretched depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold--
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by--
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
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."
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is, and nothing more."
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door;--
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this, and nothing more.
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more."
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no
craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown
before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'."
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and
door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he
hath sent thee
Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore--
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the
floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!
Stories
