IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute;'
None sing so wildly well

1 This poem suffered more changes than any other of Poe's. The germ of it is perhaps to be found in 'Imitation,' in the 1827 volume; but no phrase of that poem is identical with any phrase of this. To in the volume of 1829, contains one line taken from Imitation.' Part of To ' was used as a last paragraph of Tamerlane' in the edition of 1831; and the whole was later revised and considerably shortened, and was published by Griswold in 1849 with its present title.

2 And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. KORAN. (Poe's note, 1845.)

Poe alone is responsible for the words' Whose heartstrings are a lute.' The rest of the phrase had been quoted by Thomas Moore, in his Lalla Rookh,' from Sale's 'Preliminary Discourse' to the Koran. Poe, as Professor Woodberry has pointed out, took the phrase from Moore.

Therefore, thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest

An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above

With thy burning measures suit -
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this

Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely - flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours.

. If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

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40

While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

1831.

THE CITY IN THE SEA

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have 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 sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires — up kingly halls -
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye
Not the gayly-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea

No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave-there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-

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40

AT midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.

The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!-and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor ! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness !

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep!

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Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,

While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep!

41

Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft hath flung its black 50
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

LENORE 2

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1831.

Aн, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

2 The first and third stanzas are supposed to be spoken by the wretches,' relatives or false friends of Lenore; the second and fourth stanzas by Guy De Vere, her lover.

In this one case, perhaps, Poe's latest version is not so good as an earlier one. The form of Lenore published in 1843 is given below for comparison.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl!
The spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!- A saintly soul
Glides down the Stygian river!
And let the burial rite be read-
The funeral song be sung-
A dirge for the most lovely dead
That ever died so young!
And, Guy De Vere,

Hast thou no tear?

Weep now or nevermore !

See, on yon drear

And rigid bier,

Low lies thy love Lenore!

'Yon heir, whose cheeks of pallid hue
With tears are streaming wet,

Sees only, through

Their crocodile dew,

A vacant coronet

With young hope at her side,

And thou art wild

For the dear child

That should have been thy bride

For her, the fair

And debonair,

That now so lowly lies

The life still there

Upon her hair,

The death upon her eyes.

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 hallow'd mirth,

Should catch the note

As it doth float

Up from the damned earth

To friends above, from fiends below,

Th' indignant ghost is riven

From grief and moan

To a gold throne

Beside the King of Heaven!'

It seems probable that Poe was influenced by the success of The Raven' to rearrange Lenore' in somewhat similar lines of even length.

In the text above I have given the last stanza of the poem as it stands in the Lorimer Graham_copy-a copy of the edition of 1845, corrected by Poe's own hand. In the edition of 1845, uncorrected, the stanza, reads as follows:

'Avaunt!-avaunt! 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.'

Let no bell toll then!-lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!

And I!-to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! It is interesting to note that in this case, and perhaps in this case only, Poe, after changing considerably a passage of his work, later returned to a previous version. The arrangement of ideas in his corrected copy of this fourth stanza is much closer to the 1843 version than to that of 1845.

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

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 'gone before,' with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy brideFor 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 death upon her eyes.

the

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.'

1831, 1843, 1845.

THE VALLEY OF UNREST

ONCE it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visiter shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless-
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven