網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Come! let the burial rite be read the funeral song

be sung!

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so

young

A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

66

II.

Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her - that she died!

"How shall the ritual, then, be read?-the requiem how be sung

66

66

By you by yours, the evil eye-by yours, the

[ocr errors]

slanderous tongue

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

III.

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath

song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no

wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath 66

that flew beside,

gone before," with Hope,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride

For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly

lies,

The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her

eyes

The life still there upon her hair-the death upon her eyes.

IV.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old

days!

Let no bell toll!-lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven

From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."

A VALENTINE.

FOR her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes, Brightly expressive as the twins of Loda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies

Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure Divine-a talisman.

an amulet

That must be worn at heart.

sure

Search well the mea

labour !

The words-the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot. Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet's, too. Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto-Mendez FerdinandoStill form a synonym for Truth. — Cease trying! You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.*

*FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD, the poetess-dead, since Poe. For her opinion of him, see Griswold's Memoir.-ED.

AN ENIGMA.

66

66

SELDOM we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once,
As easily as through a Naples bonnet--

Trash of all trash-how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.

The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles-ephemeral and so transparent-

But this is now

-you may depend upon it

Stable, opaque, immortal-all by dint

Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't.*

In the last two poems, read the first letter of the first line in connexion with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth, and so on to the end. The name of the persons to whom addressed will thus appear.

*See POE's" Literati," p. 242.-ED.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length-at length-after so many days

« 上一頁繼續 »