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; And my soul, from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted-nevermore ! LENORE. AH, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever! 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! love, Lenore! See on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy [be sung! Come! let the burial rite be read-the funeral song An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died [so young. A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so young "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 By you-by yours, the evil eye-by yours, the slanderous tongue That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?" Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sab bath song [wrong! Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no The sweet Lenore hath " gone before," with Hope, that flew beside, Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride[lies, For her, the fair and débonnaire, that now so lowly The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her [her eyes. The life still there, upon her hair-the death upon eyes "Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. will I upraise, No dirge [days! But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old 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.” FOR A VALENTINE. OR 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 [measureThat must be worn at heart. Search well the The words-the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labour ! 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 Ferdinando Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease trying! You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do. [To translate the address, read the first letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, and fourth of the fourth, and so on to the end. The name will thus appear.] TYPE THE COLISEUM. "YPE 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 Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie), I kneel, an altered and an humble man, Amid thy shadows, and so drink within My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory! Vastness and Age! and Memories of Eld! Here, where a hero fell, a column falls ! blackened shafts These vague entablatures-this crumbling frieze, These shattered cornices-this wreck-this ruinThese stones-alas! these grey stones-are they all All of the famed and the colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me? "Not all "-the Echoes answer me-" not all! |