THOU wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
“On! on!”—but o’er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o’er!
No more—no more—no more—
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.To One in Paradise
About the poet
Edgar Allan Poe
On January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe's father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a p…
View profile & all 56 Poems / StoriesMore from Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
The Bells
I.Hear the sledges with the bells
Fairy-Land
Dim vales and shadowy floodsAnd cloudy-looking woods,
To My Mother
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,The angels, whispering to one another,
The City in the Sea
Lo! Death has reared himself a throneIn a strange city lying alone
