 Section 72 of the Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allan Poe. Section 72. The Coloquy of Monos and Oona. Monos, read by Algy Pug. Oona, read by Eva Davis. Melonta Santa. These things are in the future. Sophocles. Antigone. Born again. Yes, fairest and best beloved Oona. Born again. These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until death itself resolved for me the secret. Death. O strangely, sweet Oona, you echo my words. I observe, too, a vacillation in your step, a joyous inquiritude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the life eternal. Yes, it was of death I spoke. And here, how singularly sounds that word, which evolved, was word to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew upon all pleasures. Ah, death, the spectre which sat at all feasts. How often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculation upon its nature? How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, thus far, had no farther? That earnest, mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy and as first up springing that our happiness would strengthen with its strength. Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever. Thus in time it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then. Speak not here of these greeps, dear Oona, mine, mine for ever now. But the memory of past sorrow isn't that present joy. I have much to say yet of the things which have been, above all. I burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark valley and shadow. And when do the radiant Oona ask anything of her, Monos, in vain? I will be minute in relating all. But at what point shall the weird narrative begin? At what point? You have said. Monos, I comprehend you. In death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of life sensation, but commence with that sad, sad instant when the fever having abandoned you you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor. And I press down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love. One word first, my Oona, in regard to man's general condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our forefathers, wise in fact, although not in the world's esteem, had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term improvement as applied to the progress of our civilisation. There were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose some vigorous intellect boldly contending with those principles whose truth appears now to our disenfranchised reason so utterly obvious. Principles we should have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws rather than to attempt their control. At long intervals some masterminds appeared, looking upon each advanced in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect, that intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of all, since those truths, which to us were of the most enduring importance, would only be reached by that analogy which speaks in proof tones to the imagination alone, and to the unaided reason, bears no weight. Occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving and the vague idea of the philosophic, and find, in mystic parable, that tells of the tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation that knowledge was not meat for man in the infant condition of his soul. And these men, the poets, living and perishing, amid the scorn of the utilitarians, a rough pedance who irrigated to themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the scorned, these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were keen, days when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was happiness. Holy August and blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed between hills unhewn into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous and unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon most evil of all our evil days. The great movement, that was the Kant term, went on. A diseased commotion, moral and physical, art, the arts, arose supreme, and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked God in his own fancy, an infantile imbecility came over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with system and with abstraction. He enrapt himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground. And in the face of analogy, and of God, in spite of the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading all things in earth and heaven, wild attempts at an omniprevalent democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil, knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meanwhile huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of nature was deformed, as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And me thinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone, that faculty, which holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral sense, would never safely have been disregarded. It was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to beauty, to nature, and to life, but alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato, alas for the music which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for the soul, alas for him and for it, since both were most desperately needed when both were most entirely forgotten or despised. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly, qui tourne notre raisonnement, s'est rélui de s'radire au sentiment. And it is not possible that the sentiment of the natural, had time permitted it, would have gained its old ascendancy over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old age of the world drew near. This, the mass of mankind, saw not. Or, living lustily, though unhappily, affected not to see. But for myself the earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilisation. I had imbibed a prescience of our fate for in comparison of China, the simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from the future. The individual artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the earth, and in their individual overthrowes we had seen local remedies applied. But for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw that he must be born again. And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits daily in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the days to come, when the art scarred surface of the earth, having undergone that purification, which alone could efface its rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself renew in the verger and the mountain slopes, and the smiling waters of paradise, and be rendered at length a fit dwelling place for man. For man the death purged, for man to whose now exalted intellect there should be poison in knowledge no more, for the redeemed regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for the material man. Well, do I remember these conversations, dear Monos, but the epic of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in believing. Men lived and died individually, you yourself sickened, and passed into the grave, and thither your constant unus speedily followed you. And though the century which his sense elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up together once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience of duration, yet, my Monos, it was a century still. Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was in the earth's dotage that I died. Weuried at heart with anxieties, which had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but was impotent to deceive you, after some days they came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless torpor. And this was termed death by those who stood around me. Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by external disturbances. I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses were unusually active, although eccentrically so, assuming often each other's functions at random. The taste and smell were inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense. The rosewater, with which your tenderness had moistened my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The eyelids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their sockets, but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness. The rays, which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the eye, producing more vivid effect than those which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as sound—sound, sweet or discordant, as the matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark in shade, curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree, was not irregular in action, estimating real sounds with an extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily received, but pertenaciously retained, and resulted always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision, at length, long after their removal, filled my whole being with essential delight immeasurable. I say, with essential delight, all my perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the passive brain by the senses were not, in the least degree, wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain there was some little, of pleasure there was much. But of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone. For they were soft musical sounds, and no more. They conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth, while large and constant tears, which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke, threw at every fiber of my frame, with ecstasy alone. And this was in truth the death of which these bystanders spoke reverently in low whispers. You, sweet Una, gas-wingly, with loud cries. They attired me for the coffin, three or four dark figures which flitted busily, two and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my vision, they affected me as forms. But upon passing to my side the images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about. The day waned, and as its light faded away, I became possessed by a vague uneasiness, an anxiety such as a sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear. Low distant bell tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy dreams, night arrived, and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into the rooms, and this reverberation became forthwith, interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound, but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was, in a great measure, relieved, and issuing from the flame of each lamp, for there were many, their flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strand of melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side, breathing odour from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with the merely physical sensations which circumstances had called forth, something akin to sentiment itself, a feeling that half appreciating, half responded, to your earnest love and sorrow. But this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual pleasure as before. And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its exercise I found a wild delight. Yet a delight, still physical, inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered, no nerve thrilled, no artery throbbed. For there seemed to have sprung up in the brain that of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental-pengiless pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man's abstract idea of time. By the absolute equalization of this movement, or of such as this, had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantle and of the watches of the attendants. Their ticking came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion, and these deviations were omniprevalent, affected me just as violations of abstract truth were won't on earth to affect the moral sense. Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones and respective momentary errors of each, and this keen, perfect, self-existing sentiment of duration, this sentiment existing, as man could not possibly have conceived it to exist, independently of any succession of events, this idea, this sixth sense, up-springing from the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of the temporal eternity. It was midnight, and you still sat by my side. All others had departed from the chamber of death. They had deposited me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly, for this I knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer. The oppression of the darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shot, like that of electricity, pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged into the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of the deadly decay. Yet had not all of sentience departed, for the consciousness and the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the flesh, and as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence, a one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dullly felt the use sat by my side. So too, when the noon of the second day came, I was not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side, which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. And here, in the prison house, which has few secrets to disclose, there rolled away days and weeks and months, and the soul watched narrowly each second as it flew, and without effort took record of its flight, without effort and without object. A year passed, the consciousness of being had grown hourly more indistinct, and that of mere locality had, in great measure, usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of place. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the body was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often happens to the sleeper, by sleep and its world alone, is death imaged. At length, as sometimes happened on earth to the deep slumberer, when some flitting light, half startled him into awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams. So, to me, in a strict embrace of the shadow, came that light, which alone might have had the power to startle, the light of enduring love. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay, darkling, they up through the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void. That nebulous light had been extinguished, that feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quiescence. Many lustre had supervened. Dust had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being had, at length, utterly departed. And there reigned in its stead. Instead of all things dominant and perpetual, the autocrats place and time. For that which was not, for that which had no form, for that which had no thought, for that which had no sentience, for that which was soundless, yet of which matter formed no portion, all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours co-mates. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Section 73 of the Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe The Conversation of Iros and Karmian Iros read by Larry Wilson. Karmian read by Archie Pag. I will bring fire to thee, Euripides and Romelia. Why do you call me Iros? So, henceforward, will you always be called? You must forget, too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Karmian. This is indeed no dream. Dreams are with us no more, but of these mysteries are none. I rejoice to see you looking lifelike and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired, and tomorrow I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence. True, I feel no stupor, not at all. The wild sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad rushing, horrible sound like the voice of many waters. Yet my senses are bewildered, Karmian, with the keenness of their perception of the new. A few days will remove all this, but I fully understand you and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you undergo. Its remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aiden. In Aiden? In Aiden. Oh, God, pity me, Karmian. I am over-birthened with the majesty of all things, of the unknown, now known, of the speculative future merged in the august and certain present. Grapple not now with such thoughts. Tomorrow we will speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward, but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, any old familiar language of the world which is so fearfully perished. Most fearfully. Fearfully, this is indeed no dream. Dreams are no more. Was I much-born, my iris? Morn, Karmian? Oh, deeply, to that last hour of all. There hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household. And that last hour, speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into night through the grave. At that period, if I remember a rite, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day. The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unanticipated. But analogous misfortunes have been long a subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that apoc in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded, for the elements of all the comets were accurately known, that among them we should look for the agency of the threat and fiery destruction had been for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been of late days strangely rife among mankind, and although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this announcement was generally received with, I know not what, of agitation and mistrust. The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path at Perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or three astronomers, a secondary note, who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people, for a few short days they would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so long employed among worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally all men saw that astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance a very unusual character. It was of a dull red and had little perceptible terrain. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color. Meantime the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned now gave their intellect to no such points as the Allain of Fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought, they panted for right views, they groaned for perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength, and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored. That material injury to our globe or its inhabitants would result from the apprehended contact was an opinion which hourly lost ground among the wise, and the wise were now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated that the density of the comet's nucleus was far less than that of our rarest gas, and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists with an earnestness, fearing kindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies and expounded them to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had been known. That the final destruction of the earth must be brought about by the agency of fire was urged with a spirit that enforced everywhere conviction, and that the comets were of no fiery nature, as all men now knew, was a truth which relieved all in a great measure from the apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to pestilence and wars, errors which were want to prevail upon every appearance of a comet, were now altogether unknown, as if by some sudden convulsive exertion reason had once hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive interest. What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and consequently in vegetation, of possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While such discussions were going on, the subject gradually approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant luster. Mankind grew paler as it came. All human operations were suspended. There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when the comet had attained at length a size surpassing that of any previously recorded visitation. The people now dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings and sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange orb any accustomed thoughts. Its historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken with unconceivable rapidity the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame extending from horizon to horizon. Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom, it was clear that we were already within the influence of the comet. Yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent, for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime our vegetation had perceptibly altered, and we gained faith from this predicted circumstance in the foresight of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out upon every vegetable thing. Yet another day, and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change had come over all men, and the first sense of pain was the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a rigorous construction of the breast and lungs, and an insoverable dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was radically affected. The conformation of this atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might be subjected were now the topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intense terror through the universal heart of man. It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of 21 measures of oxygen and 79 of nitrogen in every 100 of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was the most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had laterally experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a total extraction of the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible, all devouring, omniprevalent, immediate, the entire fulfillment in all their minute and terrible details of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book. Why need I paint, Carmian, the now disenchained frenzy of mankind? The tenuity in the comet, which had previously inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceive the consummation of fate. Meantime a day again passed, burying away with it the last shadow of hope. We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red blood bounded tumultrously through its strict canals. The furious delurium possessed all men, and with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon us. Even here in Aden I shudder while I speak. Let me be brief. Brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a moment there was a wild lured light alone, visiting and penetrating all things. Then, let us bow down, Carmian, before the excessive majesty of the great God. Then there came a shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of him, while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all. End of Section 73. Shadow, a parable, by Edgar Allan Poe. Read for LibreFox.org by Anita Sloma-Martinez. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow, some of David. He who read, are still among the living, but I who write, shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows, for indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away ere these memorials be seen of men, and when seen there will be some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with the stylus of iron. The year had been a year of terror, and a feeling more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth, for many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens were an aspect of ill, and to me, the Greek oinos, among others, it was evident that now had arrived to the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when at the entrance of Aries the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest not only in the physical orb of the earth but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind. Over some flasks of the red chi and wine within the walls of a noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemaeus, we sat at night a company of seven, and to our chamber there was no entrance saved by a lofty door of brass, and the door was fashioned by the artisan Coronos, and being of rare workmanship was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise in the gloomy room, shout out from our view the moon, the lured stars, and the people the streets, but the boating and the memory of evil they would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I can render no distinct account, things material and spiritual, heaviness in the atmosphere, a sense of suffocation, anxiety, and above all the terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hugged upon us, it hugged upon our limbs, upon the household furniture, upon the goblets from which we drank, and all things were depressed, and borne down thereby, all things save only the flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light they thus remained burning, all pallid and motionless, and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at which we sat, each of us there assembled, behold the pallor of our own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed, and were merry in our proper way, which was hysterical, and sang the songs of Anacrayon, which are madness, and drank deeply, although the purple wine reminded us of blood, for there was yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead and at full length he lay and shrouded, the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such an interest in our merriment, as the dead may happily take in the merriment of those who are to die. But although I, Oynus, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the sun-up-tails. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes rolling afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber became weak and undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the song departed there came forth a dark and undefiled shadow, a shadow such as the moon when low in heaven might fashion from the figure of a man. But it was the shadow neither of man nor of God nor of any familiar thing, and quivering awhile among the draperies of the room it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague and formless and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor God, neither God of Greece, nor God of Caldea, nor any Egyptian God, and the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway and under the arch of the entableture of the door and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained, and the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I remember a right, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes engaged continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length, I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation, and the shadow answered, I am shadow, and my dwelling is near to the catacombs of Ptolemaus, and hard by those dim planes of illusion, which border upon the fall of Chironi and Canal. And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling and shuddering and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Adrien Stephens. The complete poetical works by Edgar Allan Poe, section 75. Silence, a fable. The mountain pinnacles slumber, valleys, crags, and caves are silent. Listen to me, said the demon, as he placed his hand upon my head. The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire, and there is no quiet there, nor silence. The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue, and they flow not onward to the sea, but palpitate for ever, and for ever, beneath the red eye of the sun, with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles on either side of the river's oozy bird is a pale desert of gigantic water lilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude, and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting heads, and there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out from among them, like the rushing of subterine water, and they sigh one unto the other. But there is a boundary to their realm, the boundary of the dark, horrible, lofty forest, there, like the waves about the hebrides, the low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind throughout the heaven, and the tall primeval trees rock eternally hither and thither, with a crashing and mighty sound, and from their high summits one by one drop everlasting dews. And at the roots strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber, and overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the grey clouds rush westwardly forever until they roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven, and by the shores of the river Zaire there is neither quiet nor silence. It was night, and the rain fell, and falling it was rain, but having fallen it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell upon my head, and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation. And all at once the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and was crimson in colour, and my eyes fell upon a huge grey rock which stood by the shore of the river, and was lighted by the light of the moon, and the rock was grey, and ghastly, and tall, and the rock was grey. Upon its front were characters engraven in the stones, and I walked through the morass of water lilies, until I came close unto the shore that I might read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decipher them, and I was going back into the morass, when the moon shone with a fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon the rock, and upon the characters, and the characters were desolation. And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the rock, and I hid myself among the water lilies that I might discover the action of the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the toga of old Rome. And the outlines of his figure were indistinct, but his features were the features of a deity. For the mantle of the night, and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered the features of his face. And his brow was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care, and in the few furrows upon his cheek I read the fables of sorrow and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a longing after solitude. And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low, unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude, but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock. And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the water lilies. And the man listened to the size of the water lilies, and to the murmur that came up from among them. And I lay close within my covert, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude, but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock. Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in among the wilderness of the lilies, and called upon the hippopotami, which dwelt among the fens of the recesses of the morass. And the hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot of the rock, and roared loudly, and fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay close within my covert, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude, but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock. Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult, and a frightful tempest gathered in the heaven, where before there had been no wind. And the heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest, and the rain beat upon the head of the man, and the floods of the river came down, and the river was tormented into foam, and the water lilies shrieked within their beds, and the forest crumbled before the wind, and the thunder rolled, and the lightning fell, and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay close within my covert, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude, but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock. Then I grew angry and cursed with the curse of silence, the river, and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the thunder, and the size of the water lilies, and they became accursed, and were still. And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to heaven, and the thunder died away, and the lightning did not flash, and the clouds hung motionless, and the waters sunk to their level and remained, and the trees ceased to rock, and the water lilies sighed no more, and the murmur was heard no longer from among them, nor any shadow of sound through the vast, illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and they were changed, and the characters were silence. And my eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his countenance was one with terror, and hurriedly he raised his head from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock, and listened. But there was no voice throughout the vast, illimitable desert, and the characters upon the rock were silence. And the man shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld him no more. Section break. Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi in the iron-bound melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories of the heaven, and of the earth, and of the mighty sea, and of the genii that overruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much lore, too, in the sayings which were heard by the Sibbles, and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around Dodona. But as Alaliveth, that fable which the demon told me, as he sat by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all. And as the demon made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of the tomb, and laughed. And I could not laugh with the demon, and he cursed me because I could not laugh. And the lynx, which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the demon, and looked at him steadily in the face. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Section 76 of the Complete Poetical Works. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marendro07. The Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allan Poe. Section 76, The Poetic Principle. In speaking of the poetic principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing very much at random the essentiality of what we call poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By minor poems, I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase a long poem is simply a flat contradiction in terms. I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only in as much as it excites by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a cycle necessity, transient. That degree of excitement, which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags, fails, a revulsion ensues, and then the poem is, in effect, and, in fact, no longer such. There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the paradise lost is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of art, unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If to preserve its unity, its totality of effect or impression, we read it as would be necessary at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude, which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire. But if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book, that is to say, commencing with the second, we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned, that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun is a nullity, and this is precisely the fact. In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics. But, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is of the supposititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem were popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again. That the extent of a poetical work is Titris Paribus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus stated, a proposition sufficiently absurd, yet we are indebted for it to the quarterly reviews. Surely, there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered, there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these satinine pamphlets. A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the sublime, but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material grandeur of even the Columbia. Even the quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not insisted on our estimating a Lamertine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound. But what else are we to infer from their continual preting about sustained effort? If by sustained effort any little gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the effort, if this indeed be a thing commendable, but let us forebear praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of art rather by the impression it makes, by the effect it produces, than by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of sustained effort which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is that perseverance is one thing, and genius quite another, nor can all the quarterlies in christened them confound them. By and by this proposition, with many, which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths. On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Béranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general, they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft, only to be whistled down the wind. A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little serenade. I arise from dreams of thee in the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low, and the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, and a spirit in my feed has led me, who knows how, to thy chamber window, sweet. The wandering airs they faint, on the dark, the silenced dream, the champak odours fail, like sweet thoughts in a dream, the nightingales complaint, it dies upon her heart, as I must die on thine, O beloved as thou art. O, lift me from the grass, I die, I faint, I fail, let thy love in kisses rain, on my lips and eyelids pale, my cheek is cold and white alas, my heart beats loud and fast, O, press it close to thine again, where it will break at last. Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines, yet no lesser poet than Shelley is their author. Their warm yet delicate and ethereal imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern Midsummer night. One of the finest poems by Willis, the very best, in my opinion, which he has ever written, has no doubt, through this same defect of undue brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the critical than in the popular view. The shadows lay along Broadway, towards near the twilight tide, and slowly there a lady fair was walking in her pride, alone walked she, but viewlessly walked spirits at her side. Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, and honour charmed the air, and all a stir looked kind on her, and called her good as fair, for all God ever gave to her, she kept with cherry care. She kept with care her beauty's rare, from lovers warm and true, for heart was cold to all but gold, and the rich came not to woo, but honoured well her charms to sell, if priests the selling do. Now walking there was one more fair, a slight girl, Lily Payle, and she had unseen company to make the spirit quail, twixed want and scorn, she walked forlorn, and nothing could avail. No mercy now can clear her brow from this world's peace to pray, for as love's wild prayer dissolved in air her woman's heart gave way, but the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven by man is cursed all way. In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has written so many mere verses of society. The lines are not only richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the other works of this author. While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity is indispensable, has for some years passed been gradually dying out of the public mind by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which in the brief period it has already endured may be said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our poetical literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of the didactic. It has been assumed tacitly and avowedly directly and indirectly that the ultimate object of all poetry is truth. Every poem it is said should inculcate a moral, and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake and to acknowledge such to have been our design would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force. But the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem's sake. With as deep a reverence for the true as ever inspired by the bosom of man I would nevertheless limit in some measure its modes of inculcation. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The demands of truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreath her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theoremat beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of poetry and truth. Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious distinctions we have the pure intellect, taste and the moral sense. I place taste in the middle because it is just this position which in the mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme but from the moral sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues themselves. Nevertheless we find the offices of the trio marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect concerns itself with truth so taste informs us of the beautiful while the moral sense is regardful of duty. Of this latter while conscience teaches the obligation and reason the expediency, taste contents herself with displaying the charms, waging war upon vice solely on the ground of her deformity, her disproportion, her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious, in a word, to beauty. An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a sense of the beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms and sounds and odours and sentiments amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake or the eyes of Amorellis in the mirror so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms and sounds and colours and odours and sentiments a duplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing with however glowing enthusiasm or with however vivid a truth of description of the sights and sounds and odours and colours and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind he I say has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable to a language he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the beauty before us but a wild effort to reach the beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle by multi-form combinations among the things and thoughts of time to attain a portion of that loveliness whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by poetry or when by music the most entrancing of the poetic moods we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then not as the Abbotay Gravina supposes through excess of pleasure but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, holy here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys of which, through the poem or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. The struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness, this struggle on the part of souls fittingly constituted, has given to the world all that which it, the world, has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic. The poetic sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes, in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in the dance, very especially in music and very peculiarly and with a wide field, in the composition of the landscape garden. Our present theme, however, has regard only to its manifestation in words, and here let me speak briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that music, in its various modes of meter, rhythm and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in poetry as never to be wisely rejected, is so vitally important and adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance. I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the poetic sentiment, it struggles the creation of supernal beauty. It may be indeed that here this sublime end is, now and then, attained in fact. We are often made to feel with a shivering delight that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels, and thus there can be little doubt that in the union of poetry with music in its popular sense, we shall find the widest field for the poetic development. The old bards and minisingers had advantages which we do not possess, and Thomas More, singing his own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems. To recapitulate then, I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty. Its soul arbiter is taste. With the intellect or with the conscience, it has only collateral relations, unless incidentally it has no concern whatever, either with duty or with truth. A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure, which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. In the contemplation of beauty, we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation or excitement of the soul, which we recognize as the poetic sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from truth, which is the satisfaction of the reason, or from passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I make beauty, therefore, using the word as inclusive of the sublime, I make beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of art that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes. No one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of passion, or the precepts of duty, or even the lessons of truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage, for they may serve, incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work. But the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that beauty, which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem. I cannot better introduce the few poems, which I shall present for your consideration, than by the citation of the poem to Longfellow's Wave. The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night, as a feather is wafted downward from an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village gleam through the rain and the mist, and a feeling of sadness comes over me that my soul cannot resist. A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only, as the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, some simple and heartfelt lay, that shall soothe this restless feeling, and banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, not from the bards sublime, whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of time. For, like strains of martial music, their mighty thoughts suggest life's endless toil and endeavour, and tonight I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, whose songs gushed from his heart, as showers from the clouds of summer, or tears from the eyelids start, who through long days of labour, and nights devoid of ease, still heard in his soul the music of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet the restless pulse of care, and come like the benediction that follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice, and lend to the rhyme of the poet the beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, and the cares that infest the day shall fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steel away. With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective. Nothing can be better than the bards sublime, whose distant footsteps echo down the corridors of time. The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insoucians of its meter, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and especially for the ease of the general manner. This ease, or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone as a point of really difficult attainment. But not so. A natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle with it, to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that the tone in composition should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt, and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author, who, after the fashion of the North American review, should be upon all occasions merely quiet, must necessarily upon many occasions be simply silly or stupid, and has no more right to be considered easy, or natural, than a cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping beauty in the waxworks. Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles June. I quote only a portion of it. There, through the long, long summer hours, the golden light should lie, and thick young herbs and groups of flowers stand in their beauty by. The Oriole should build and tell, his love tale close beside my cell, the idle butterfly should rest him there, and there be heard the housewife bee and hummingbird. And what, if cheerful shouts at noon, come from the village scent, or songs of maids beneath the moon, with fairy laughter blend? And what if, in the evening light, betrothed lovers walk in sight of my low monument? I would, the lovely scene around, might know no sadder sight nor sound. I know, I know, I should not see the season's glorious show, nor would its brightness shine for me, nor its wild music flow. But if, around my place of sleep, the friends I love should come to weep, they might not haste to go. Soft airs and song and light and bloom should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their softened hearts should bear the thought of what has been, and speak of one who cannot share the gladness of the scene, whose part in all the pomp that fills the circuit of the summer hills, is that his grave is green, and deeply would their hearts rejoice to hear again his living voice. The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous, nothing could be more melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The intense melancholy, which seems to well up, perforce to the surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul, while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness, and if, in the remaining compositions, which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that, how or why we know not, this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true beauty. It is, nevertheless, a feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain. The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible, even in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as the health of Edward Cude Picney. I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, a woman of her gentle sex, the seeming paragon, to whom the better elements and kindly stars have given a form so fair that like the air, tis less of earth than heaven. Her every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds, and something more than melody dwells ever in her words. The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each flows, as one may see the burdened be, fourth issue from the rose. Affections are as thoughts to her, the measures of her hours, her feelings have the fragrancy, the freshness of young flowers, and lovely passions changing oft, so fill her, she appears, the image of themselves by turns, the idol of past years. Of her bright face, one glance will trace a picture on the brain, and of her voice in echoing hearts, a sound must long remain, but memory, such as mine of her, so very much endears. When death is nigh, my latest sigh will not be life's, but hers. I filled this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, a woman of her gentle sex, the seeming paragon, her health and wood on earth there stood, some more of such a frame, that life might be all poetry, and weariness a name. It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a new englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American letters in conducting the thing called the North American Review. The poem just cited is especially beautiful, but the poetic elevation which it induces, we must refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperbelies for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered. It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Bokalina, in his advertisements from Parnassus, tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book, where upon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all the chaff for his reward. Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics, but I am by no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, in the poem especially, may be considered in the light of an axiom, which need only be properly put to become self-evident. It is not excellence if it required to be demonstrated as such, and thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work of art is to admit that they are not merits altogether. Among the melodies of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude to his lines beginning Come, rest in this bosom. The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the all-in-all of the divine passion of love, a sentiment which perhaps has found its echo in more and in more passionate human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words. Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken dear, though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here. Here still is the smile that no cloud can overcast, and a heart and a hand, all thy own to the last. Oh, what was love made for, if it is not the same, through joy and through torment, through glory and shame. I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss, and thy angel I'll be, mid the horrors of this, through the furnace and shrinking, thy steps to pursue, and shield thee, and save thee, or perish thereto. It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore imagination, while granting him fancy, a distinction originating with coal-rich, than whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there a greater mistake, never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the compass of the English language, I can call to mind no poem more profoundly, more weirdly imaginative, in the best sense, than the lines commencing, I would, I were, by that dim lake. Which are the composition of Thomas Moore? I regret that I am unable to remember them. One of the noblest, and speaking of fancy, one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His, fair Ines, had always for me an inexpressible charm. Oh, saw you not, fair Ines, she's gone into the west, to dazzle when the sun is down, and rob the world of rest. She took our daylight with her, the smiles that we love best, with morning blushes on her cheek, and pearls upon her breast. Oh, turn again, fair Ines, before the fall of night, for fear the moon should shine alone, and stars unrivaled bright, and blessed will the lover be that walks beneath their light, and breathes the love against thy cheek, I dare not even write. Would I had been, fair Ines, that gallant cavalier, who rode so gaily by thy side, and whispered thee so near? Were there no Bonnie Dames at home, or no true lovers here, that he should cross the seas to win the dearest of the dear? I saw thee, lovely Ines, descend along the shore, with bands of noble gentlemen, and banners waved before, and gentle youth, and maidens gay, and snowy plumes they wore, it would have been a beautyous dream, if it had been no more. Alas, alas, fair Ines, she went away with song, with music waiting on her steps, and shoutings of the throng, but some were sad, and felt no mirth, but only music's wrong, in sounds that sang, fair well, fair well, to her you've loved so long. Fair well, fair well, fair Ines, that vessel never bore, so fair a lady on its deck, nor danced so light before. Alas, for pleasure on the sea, and sorrow on the shore, the smile that blessed one lover's heart has broken many more. The Haunted House, by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever written, one of the truest, one of the most unacceptable, one of the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and its execution. It is, moreover, powerfully ideal, imaginative. I regret that its length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it, permit me to offer the universally appreciated bridge of size. One more unfortunate, wary of breath, rashly importunate, gone to her death. Take her up tenderly, lift her with care, fashioned so slenderly, young, and so fair. Look at her garments, clinging like seriments, whilst the wave constantly drips from her clothing, take her up instantly, loving, not loathing. Touch her not scornfully, think of her mournfully, gently and humanly, not of the stains of her, all that remains of her now is pure womanly. Make no deep scrutiny into her mutiny, rash and undutiful, past all dishonour, death has left on her only the beautiful. Where the lamps quiver so far in the river, with many a light from window and casement, from garret to basement, she stood with amazement, houseless by night. The bleak wind of March made her tremble and shiver, but not the dark arch or the black flowing river, mad from life's history, glad to death's mystery, swift to be hurled anywhere, anywhere out of the world. In she plunged boldly, no matter how coldly, the rough river ran over the brink of it, picture it, think of it, disilute man, lave in it, drink of it, then, if you can. Still, for all slips of hers, one of Eve's family, wiped those poor lips of hers, oozing so clamily, loop up her tresses, escaped from the comb, her fair Auburn tresses, whilst wonderment guesses, where was her home? Who was her father, who was her mother, had she a sister, had she a brother, or was there a dearer one, still and a nearer one, yet than all other? Alas for the rarity of Christian charity, under the sun, oh, it was pitiful, near a whole cityful home she had none. Sisterly, brotherly, fatherly, motherly, feelings had changed, love by harsh evidence, thrown from its eminence, even God's providence, seeming estranged. Take her up tenderly, lift her with care, fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair, air her limbs frigidly, stiffen too rigidly, decently, kindly, smooth and compose them, and her eyes close them, staring so blindly, dreadfully staring through muddy impurity, as when with the daring last look of despairing, fixed on futurity, perishing gloomily, spurred by contumely, cold in humanity, burning insanity, into her rest, cross her hands humbly, as if praying dumbly, over her breast, owning her weakness, her evil behavior, and leaving with meekness her sins to her savior. The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity, which is the thesis of the poem. Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves. Though the day of my destinies over, and the star of my fate hath declined, thy soft heart refuse to discover the faults which so many could find. Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, it shrunk not to share it with me, and the love which my spirit hath painted, it never hath found, but in thee. Then, when nature around me is smiling, the last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling, because it reminds me of thine. And when winds are at war with the ocean, as the breasts I believed in with me, if their billows excite an emotion, it is that they bear me from thee. Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, and its fragments are sunk in the wave, though I feel that my soul is delivered to pain, it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me, they may crush, but they shall not contend, they may torture, but shall not subdue me, tis of thee that I think not of them. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, though woman, thou didst not forsake, though loved, thou foreborest to grieve me, though slandered, thou never could shake, though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, though parted, it was not to fly, though watchful, it was not to defame me, nor mute, that the world might be lie. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, nor the war of the many with one, if my soul was not fitted to prize it, to us folly not sooner to shun, and if dearly that error hath cost me, and more than I once could foresee, I have found that whatever it lost me, it could not deprive me of thee. From the wreck of the past which hath perished, thus much I at least may recall, it hath taught me that which I most cherished, deserved to be dearest of all. In the desert a fountain is springing, in the wide waste there still is a tree, and a bird in the solitude singing, which speaks to my spirit of thee. Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the sole elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of fate, while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering love of woman. From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him and think him the noblest of poets, not because the impressions he produces are at all times the most profound, not because the poetical excitement which he induces is at all times the most intense, but because it is at all times the most ethereal, in other words, the most elevating and most pure. No poet is so little of the earth earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, The Princess. Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. Tears from the depth of some divine despair rise in the heart and gather to the eyes in looking on the happy autumn fields and thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail that brings our friends up from the underworld. Sad as the last which reddens over one that sinks with all we love below the verge. So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds to dying ears when on to dying eyes the casement slowly grows a glimmering square. So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remembered kisses after death and sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others deep as love, deep as first love and wild with all regret. O death in life, the days that are no more. Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the poetic principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that while this principle itself is strictly and simply the human aspiration for supernal beauty, the manifestation of the principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the soul quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the heart or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the reason. For in regard to passion, alas, its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the soul. Love on the contrary, love, the true, the divine eros, the Iranian as distinguished from the Dionys in Venus is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to truth, if to be sure through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at once the true poetical effect. But this effect is referable to the harmony alone and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest. We shall reach however more immediately a distinct conception of what true poetry is by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which induce in the poet himself the true poetical effect. He recognizes the ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in heaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the clustering of low shrubberies, in the waving of the grain fields, in the slanting of tall eastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the grouping of clouds, and the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the gleaming of silver rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds, in the harp of islus, in the sighing of the night wind, in the repining voice of the forest, in the surf that complains to the shore, in the fresh breath of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes to him at even tide from far distant undiscovered islands over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts, in all unworldly motifs, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, in the grace of her step, in the lustre of her eye, in the melody of her voice, in her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments, in her burning enthousiasms, in her gentle charities, in her meek and devotional endurance, but above all, ah, far above all, he kneels to it, he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her love. Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called The Song of the Cavalier. With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the old Cavalier. A steed, a steed of matchless speed, a sword of metal keen, all else to noble heart is drose, all else on earth is mean, the neighing of the warhorse proud, the rolling of the drum, the clangor of the trumpet loud, be sounds from heaven that come, and oh, the thundering press of knights when as their war cries well, may toll from heaven an angel bright, and rouse a fiend from hell. Then mount, then mount, brave gallants all, and don your helms amane, death's courious, fame and honour call, us to the field again. No shrewish tears shall fill your eye when the sword hilts in our hand, heart whole wheel part, and no witsci for the fairest of the land, let piping swain and craven white, thus weep and pooling cry, our business is like men to fight, and hero like to die.