ULALUME
by: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
- HE skies
they were ashen and sober;
- The leaves they were crispèd and sere--
- The leaves they were withering and sere:
- It was night, in the lonesome October
- Of my most immemorial year;
- It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
- In the misty mid region of Weir--
- It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
- In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Wier.
-
- Here once, through an alley Titanic,
- Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--
- Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
- These were days when my heart was volcanic
- As the scoriac rivers that roll--
- As the lavas that restlessly roll
- Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
- In the ultimate climes of the Pole--
- That groans as they roll down Mount Yaanek
- In the realms of the Boreal Pole.
-
- Our talk had been serious and sober,
- But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--
- Our memories were treacherous and sere--
- For we knew not the month was October,
- And we marked not the night of the year--
- (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
- We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
- (Though once we had journeyed down here)
- Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
- Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
-
- And now, as the night was senescent
- And star-dials pointed to morn--
- As the star-dials hinted of morn--
- At the end of our path a liquescent
- And nebulous luster was born.
- Out of which a miraculous crescent
- Arose with a duplicate horn--
- Astarte's bediamonded crescent
- Distinct with its duplicate horn.
-
- And I said--"She is warmer than Dian;
- She rolls through an ether of sighs--
- She revels in a region of sighs:
- She has seen that the tears are not dry on
- These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
- And has come past the stars of the Lion
- To point us the path of the skies--
- To the Lethean peace of the skies--
- Come up, in despite of the Lion,
- To shine on us with her bright eyes--
- Come up through the lair of the Lion,
- With love in her luminous eyes."
-
- But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
- Said--"Sadly this star I mistrust--
- Her pallor I strangely mistrust--
- Oh, hasten!--oh, let us not linger!
- Oh, fly!--let us fly!--for we must."
- In terror she spoke, letting sink her
- Wings till they trailed in the dust--
- In agony sobbed, letting sink her
- Plumes till they trailed in the dust--
- Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
-
- I replied--"This is nothing but dreaming:
- Let us on by this tremulous light!
- Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
- Its sybillic splendor is beaming
- With Hope and in Beauty to-night:--
- See! it flickers up the sky through the night!
- Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
- And be sure it will lead us aright:
- We safely may trust to a gleaming
- That cannot but guide us aright,
- Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."
-
- Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
- And tempted her out of her gloom--
- And conquered her scruples and gloom;
- And we passed to the end of a vista,
- But were stopped by the door of a tomb--
- By the door of a legended tomb;
- And I said--"What is written, sweet sister,
- On the door of this legended tomb?"
- She replied--"Ulalume--Ulalume!--
- 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
-
- Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
- As the leaves that were crispèd and sere--
- As the leaves that were withering and sere;
- And I cried--"It was surely October
- On this very night of last year
- That I journeyed--I journeyed down here--
- That I brought a dread burden down here!
- On this night of all nights in the year,
- Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
- Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--
- This misty mid region of Weir--
- Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber--
- This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
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