Selections from American poetry Part 10

The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,-- Give me them,--and the peace of mind, dearer than all!

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile!

Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home!

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; No more from that, cottage again will I roam; Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

EDGAR ALLAN POE

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native sh.o.r.e.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy cla.s.sic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!

ISRAFEL

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute;"

None sing so wildly well As the angel Israel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty-- Where Love's a grown-up G.o.d-- Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we wors.h.i.+p in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpa.s.sioned 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 fervour of thy lute-- Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thin-e; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely--flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the suns.h.i.+ne of ours.

If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.

LENORE

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

Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy De Vere, halt thou no tear?--weep now or never more!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!-- An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride, "And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!

"How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung "By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue "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 G.o.d 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 bride For 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--the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-- "From h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.ned Earth!

And I!--to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!

THE COLISEUM

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary Of lofty contemplation left to Time By bunted centuries of pomp and power!

At length--at length--after so many days Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) I kneel, an altered and an humble man, Amid thy shadows, and so drink within My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!

Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!

I feel ye now--I feel ye in your strength-- O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!

O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!

Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!

Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the wan light of the horned moon, The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

But stay! these walls--these ivy-clad arcades-- These mouldering plinths--these sad and blackened shafts-- These vague entablatures--this crumbling frieze-- These shattered cornices--this wreck--this ruin-- These stones--alas! these gray stones--are they all-- All of the famed, and the colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

"Not all"--the Echoes answer me--"not all!

"Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever "From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, "As melody from Memnon to the Sun.

"We rule the hearts of mightiest men--we rule "With a despotic sway all giant minds.

"We are not impotent--we pallid stones.

"Not all our power is gone--not all our fame-- "Not all the magic of our high renown-- "Not all the wonder that encircles us-- "Not all the mysteries that in us lie-- "Not all the memories that hang upon "And cling around about us as a garment, "Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."