The Dimmick Family's Halloween Haunt
Poetry
The Sleeper
Feb 22nd
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1831)
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 molders 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!
O, 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!
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
For ever 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!
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 has flung its black
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.
For Annie
Feb 22nd
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1849)
Thank Heaven! the crisis –
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last –
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length –
But no matter! — I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead –
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart: — ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness — the nausea –
The pitiless pain –
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain –
With the fever called “Living”
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated — the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst: –
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst: –
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground –
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed –
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses –
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies –
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies –
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie –
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast –
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm –
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
Now in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead –
And I rest so contentedly,
Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead –
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead: –
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie –
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie –
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
To The River
Feb 19th
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1829)
Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty — the unhidden heart –
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto’s daughter;
But when within thy wave she looks –
Which glistens then, and trembles –
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies –
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.
