The Raven and Other Selected Poems. Эдгар Аллан По

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СКАЧАТЬ high tone of the spirit which hath striven

      Though not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne

      With desperate energy ’t hath beaten down;

      Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

      1827

       SONG

      I saw thee on thy bridal day—

      When a burning blush came o’er thee,

      Though happiness around thee lay,

      The world all love before thee:

      And in thine eye a kindling light

      (Whatever it might be)

      Was all on Earth my aching sight

      Of Loveliness could see.

      That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—

      As such it well may pass—

      Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

      In the breast of him, alas!

      Who saw thee on that bridal day,

      When that deep blush would come o’er thee,

      Though happiness around thee lay,

      The world all love before thee.

      1827

       SPIRITS OF THE DEAD

      Thy soul shall find itself alone

      ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone

      Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

      Into thine hour of secrecy.

      Be silent in that solitude

      Which is not loneliness—for then

      The spirits of the dead who stood

      In life before thee are again

      In death around thee—and their will

      Shall overshadow thee: be still.

      The night—tho’ clear—shall frown—

      And the stars shall not look down

      From their high thrones in the Heaven,

      With light like Hope to mortals given—

      But their red orbs, without beam,

      To thy weariness shall seem

      As a burning and a fever

      Which would cling to thee 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.

      The breeze—the breath of God—is still—

      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!

      1827

       TAMERLANE

      Kind solace in a dying hour!

      Such, father, is not (now) my theme—

      I will not madly deem that power

      Of Earth may shrive me of the sin

      Unearthly pride hath revelled in—

      I have no time to dote or dream:

      You call it hope—that fire of fire!

      It is but agony of desire:

      If I can hope—O God! I can—

      Its fount is holier—more divine—

      I would not call thee fool, old man,

      But such is not a gift of thine.

      Know thou the secret of a spirit

      Bowed from its wild pride into shame

      O yearning heart! I did inherit

      Thy withering portion with the fame,

      The searing glory which hath shone

      Amid the Jewels of my throne,

      Halo of Hell! and with a pain

      Not Hell shall make me fear again—

      O craving heart, for the lost flowers

      And sunshine of my summer hours!

      The undying voice of that dead time,

      With its interminable chime,

      Rings, in the spirit of a spell,

      Upon thy emptiness—a knell.

      I have not always been as now:

      The fevered diadem on my brow

      I claimed and won usurpingly—

      Hath not the same fierce heirdom given

      Rome to the Cæsar—this to me?

      The heritage of a kingly mind,

      And a proud spirit which hath striven

      Triumphantly with human kind.

      On mountain soil I first drew life:

      The mists of the Taglay have shed

      Nightly their dews upon my head,

      And, I believe, СКАЧАТЬ