[Literature] Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe

[Art Thurian]

Subject: Edgar Allan Poe​

I just love Edgar Allan Poe. As you know, he is best known for his tales of mystery, supernatural, and dark fiction which influenced many writers.
His personal life was marked by tragedy and turmoil. He struggled with poverty, alcoholism, and mental illness throughout his life, and his relationships were often ended unhappily. His best-known fiction works are

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horror bur he wrote many sad poems and his or others' lives. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns about premature burial, the reanimation of death and mourning, and reflect Poe's emotions from his early sad life.

Here is a poem called Sonnet to Science published 1845.

Sonnet - To Science​

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Another earlier beautiful poem is called:

Spirits of the Dead​

....also published 1829

Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone --
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:
Be silent in that solitude
Which is not loneliness -- for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee -- and their will
Shall then overshadow thee: be still.

For the night -- tho' clear -- shall frown --
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given --
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever :

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish --
Now are visions ne'er to vanish --
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more -- like dew-drop from the grass:

The breeze -- the breath of God -- is still --
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy -- shadowy -- yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token --
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries! --
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I hope you will enjoy reading these poems. They reflect kind of sad feelings and mystery.

Post automatically merged: Feb 11, 2024

Finally, another poem by Edgar Allan Poe called The Hunted Palace. The poem is about the palace which is in fact the human being's mind found in ‘the monarch Thought’s dominion’. This is a haunted palace because, whilst it is beautiful, it is also inhabited by "evil things, in robes of sorrow" which ‘assailed the monarch’s high estate’. The rumours goes that this poem may well have had its origins in Poe’s own troubled life, his battle with alcoholism, and depression, and is thus an example of how the supernatural often functions as a symbol for a poet’s inner demons. Beautiful indeed.

The Hunted Palace​

by Edgar Allan Poe

"Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A wingèd odor went away."