VII.

Yes, Heaven is thine: but this
Is a world of sweets and sours:
Our flowers are merely — flowers,
And the shadow of thy bliss

Is the sunshine of ours.

VIII.

If I did dwell where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He would not sing one half as well

One half so passionately,

While a stormier note than this would swell
From my lyre within the sky.

Variations of Southern Literary Messenger from above.

(:) II. 2 noon (noon,) IV. 4 are — (o. d.)

5 (omit), 7 yon (a) V.

5 bard, - (—) VIII. 6` While

a stormier (And a loftier).

Variations of Graham's Magazine from the text.

Note. Israfel (Israfel, or Israfeli) sweetest (most musical).

II. 6-9 With Heaven (Pauses in Heaven, | With the rapid Pleiads, even | Which were seven.) III. 4 owing to (due unto) 6 The (That) 6 wire (lyre) 7 Of (With) IV. 1 skies (Heavens) 3 Love's (Love is) 3 grown-up (grown) 6 star. After 6 insert: The more lovely, the more far! V. 1 Therefore, thou art not (Thou art not, therefore,) 3 song; (.) VI. 4 fer-vour (fervor) 4 lute () VII. 2 sours ; (- 3 flowers, (;) 4 perfect (o.) VIII. 1 could (did) 4 well (well,) 5 (One half so passionately,) 7 sky. (!)

(9)

Variations of the Broadway Journal from the text. IV. 1 Where (And) 3 grown-up (o. h.) 3 God· 4 Where (And) 2 duty() V. I Thou art not, therefore VI. 4 fervour (fervor).

EDITOR'S NOTE.

This is among the best of Poe's poems. The last verse is the clearest. — Cf. Al Aaraaf ;

all the beauty

Which we worship in a star.

Prof. Woodberry (Poems, 181) remarks that the phrase, whose heartstrings are a lute," was not in the original motto derived by Poe from Moore's "Lalla Rookh," but was interpolated, as in the text.

THE CITY IN THE SEA.

Page 49.

AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW (SUB-TITLE, A PROPHECY,) APRIL, 1845; 1845; BROADWAY JOURNAL, II. 8. THE DOOMED CITY, 1831; THE CITY OF SIN, SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, AUGUST, 1836. Text, 1845.

The earliest version (1831) reads as follows:

Lo! Death hath rear'd himself a throne

In a strange city, all alone,

Far down within the dim west

And the good, and the bad, and the worst, and

To heaven with that ungodly gloom!
Time-eaten towers that tremble not!
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

A heaven that God doth not contemn
With stars is like a diadem -

We liken our ladies' eyes to them-
But there! That everlasting pall!
It would be mockery to call
Such dreariness a heaven at all.

Yet tho' no holy rays come down
On the long night-time of that town,
Light from the lurid, deep sea
Streams up the turrets silently.

Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptur'd ivy and stone flowers

up spires up kingly halls—

Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls
Up many a melancholy shrine

Whose entablatures intertwine

The mask the viol — and the vine.

There open temples

Are on a level with the waves —

But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye,
Not the gayly-jewell'd dead
Tempt the waters from their bed:
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass
No swellings hint that winds may be

Upon a far-off happier sea:

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from the high towers of the town
Death looks gigantically down.

But lo! a stir is in the air!
The wave! there is a ripple there!
As if the towers had thrown aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide
As if the turret-tops had given
A vacuum in the filmy heaven :
The waves have now a redder glow
The very hours are breathing low -
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell rising from a thousand thrones

Shall do it reverence,

And Death to some more happy clime
Shall give his undivided time.

Variations of Southern Literary Messenger (Title, The City of Sea) from above.

Line 4 And (Where) 6 shrines (shrines,) 6 palaces (palaces,) 7 anything (any thing) 8 O! (Oh,) 8 O! (0) 20 Yet down (No holy rays from heaven come down) 22 Light sea (But light from out the lurid sea) 35 gayly (gaily) 46 wave! 50 heaven: () 54 down (down,) 55 Hell rising (All Hades) 55 thrones (thrones,).

Variations of The American Whig Review from the text.

Line 3 Far .. West, (Far off in a region unblest) 12 heaven (cap.) 22 wreathed (wreathed) 25 The melancholy (Around the mournful) 27 air, (.) 28–35 omit 36 For no (No murmuring) 39 some (a) 41 Seas less hideously (Oceans not so sad -) 47 Heaven. (.—) 49 hours (cap.).

EDITOR'S NOTE.

Death has a throne in a strange city by the edge of the It is ever night time and the only light is from

waters.

VOL. VII. 12

the lurid sea. The city hangs in pendulous reflection, with Death on a high tower. The sea is hideously serene, but a stir comes and the city will slip in the sea.

The music of this poem is charming. The theme of the city sunk in the sea is not unknown to the German ballad-writers; cf. the kindred themes of the chapel lost in the woods (Uhland), "Die Versunkene Glocke" of Hauptmann, etc., and Al Aaraaf, II.

THE SLEEPER.

Page 51.

PHILADELPHIA SATURDAY MUSEUM, MARCH 4, 1843; 1845; BROADWAY JOURNAL, I. 18; 1831 (TITLE IRENE); SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, May, 1836 (IRENE).

Text, 1845, with Lorimer Graham corrections.

The earliest version (1831) is as follows:

IRENE.

'Tis now (so sings the soaring moon)
Midnight in the sweet month of June,
When winged visions love to lie
Lazily upon beauty's eye,

Or worse - upon her brow to dance
In panoply of old romance,

Till thoughts and locks are left, alas!
A ne'er-to-be untangled mass.

An influence dewy, drowsy, dim,
Is dripping from that golden rim;
Grey towers are mouldering into rest,
Wrapping the fog around their breast:

: