Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn 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,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
– Edgar Allan Poe
Lo! Death has reared himself a throneIn a strange city lying aloneFar down within the dim West,Where the good and the bad and the worst and the bestHave gone to their eternal rest.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 skyThe melancholy waters…
Thank Heaven! the crisis,The danger, is past,And the lingering illnessIs over at last—And the fever called “Living”Is conquered at last. Sadly, I knowI am shorn of my strength,And no muscle I moveAs I lie at full length—But no matter!—I feelI am better at length. And I rest so composedly,Now, in my bed,That any beholderMight fancy…
It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea,But…
She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes;Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens…
Freedom from fear is the freedomI claim for you my motherland!Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoningcall of the future;Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewithyou fasten yourself in night’s stillness,mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous paths;freedom from the anarchy of destinywhole…
If it is not my portion to meet thee in this lifethen let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight——let me not forget for a moment,let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreamsand in my wakeful hours. As my days pass in the crowded market of this worldand my hands…