Poetry quotes

I have no words—alas!—to tell

The loveliness of loving well!

Nor would I now attempt to trace The more than beauty of a face Whose lineaments, upon my mind, Are ⸻ shadows on th’ unstable wind:

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.

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

My spirit not awakening, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. Yes!

… roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it passed 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.

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies, Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down On the long night-time of that town;

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours;

Our flowers are merely⁠—flowers,

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.

It was the dead who groaned within.

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece,

To the grandeur that was Rome.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece,

To the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window niche How statue-like I me thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!

Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings Invisible Woe!

That motley drama—oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased forevermore, 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.

But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! 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.

Out—out are the lights—out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush 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.

I dwelt alone In a world of moan, And my soul was a stagnant tide, Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride— Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

… Doubt—now Pain Come never again, For her soul gives me sigh for sigh, And all day long Shines, bright and strong, Astarté within the sky, While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye— While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river. And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more! See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come!

By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named Night, On a black throne reigns upright, I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule.

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.”

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,

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.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

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.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”

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.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness 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!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant 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.

Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant 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.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 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— …

… 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.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

Nothing farther 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.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“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.’ ”

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.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

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;

… Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember The truest, the most fervently devoted, And think that these weak lines are written by him— By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think His spirit is communing with an angel’s.

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year;

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year;

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

On this night of all nights in the year, Ah, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber— This misty mid region of Weir— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber— This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

Hear the sledges with the bells⁠—

Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight;

While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still—two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

… by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

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.

I stand amid the roar 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!