Poem of the day-139: To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe

To Helen

Edgar Allan Poe

I saw thee once - once only - years ago:

I must not say how many - but not many.

It was a July midnight; and from out

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,

With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,

Upon the upturned faces of a thousand

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,

Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe

Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses

That gave out, in return for the love-light,

Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death

Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses

That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted

By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Rose Flowers

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank

I saw thee half reclining; while the moon

Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,

And on thine own, upturn'd - alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight

Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)

That bade me pause before that garden-gate,

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?

No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,

Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! oh, God!

How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)

Save only thee and me. I paused - I looked

And in an instant all things disappeared.

(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

The pearly lustre of the moon went out:

The mossy banks and the meandering paths,

The happy flowers and the repining trees,

Were seen no more: the very roses' odors

Died in the arms of the adoring airs.

All - all expired save thee - save less than thou:

Save only the divine light in thine eyes

Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.

I saw but them - they were the world to me!

I saw but them - saw only them for hours,

Saw only them until the moon went down.

What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!

How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

How daring an ambition; yet how deep

How fathomless a capacity for love!

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,

Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees

Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;

They would not go - they never yet have gone;

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,

They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;

They follow me - they lead me through the years.

They are my ministers - yet I their slave.

Their office is to illumine and enkindle

My duty, to be saved by their bright light,

And purified in their electric fire,

And sanctified in their elysian fire.

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),

And are far up in Heaven - the stars I kneel to

In the sad, silent watches of my night;

While even in the meridian glare of day

I see them still - two sweetly scintillant

Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

Shakespeare's Sonnets-19:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Poem of the day-138: I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed by Emily Dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed,

From tankards scooped in pearl;

Not all the vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,

From inns of molten blue.

When the landlord turn the drunken bee

Out of the foxglove's door,

When butterflies renounce their drams,

I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,

And saints to windows run,

To see the little tippler

Leaning against the sun!

Poem of the day-137: There's a Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson

There's a Certain Slant of Light

Emily Dickinson

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons

That oppresses, like the heft

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

We can find no scar,

But internal difference

Where the meanings, are.

None may teach it anything,

'T is the seal, despair,

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,

Shadows hold their breath;

When it goes, 't is like the distance

On the look of death.

Shakespeare's Sonnets-18:

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:

A maid of Dian's this advantage found,

And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep

In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;

Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love

A dateless lively heat, still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove

Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.

But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,

The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;

I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,

And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,

But found no cure: the bath for my help lies

Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.

Shakespeare's Sonnets-17

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine and born of thee:

In others' works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

But thou art all my art and dost advance

As high as learning my rude ignorance.