* * *

Edgar Allen Poe

THOU wast all that to me, love,
    For which my soul did pine --
A green isle in the sea, love,
    A fountain and a shrime,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
    And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
    Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
    A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!" -- but o'er the Past
    (Dim guld!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, mothionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
    The light of Life is o'er!
    No more -- no more -- no more --
(Such language holds the solemn sea
    To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder0blasted tree,
    Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
    And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
    And where thy footstep gleams --
In what ethereal dances,
    By what eternal streams.

A DREAM

In visions of the dark night
    I have dreamed of joy departed --
But a waking dreams of life and light
    Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
    To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
    Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream -- that holy dream,
    While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
    A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
    So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
    In Truths day-star ?