To Helen (1848, by Edgar Allan Poe)

To Helen
by 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.

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 all 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’ odours
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 lie 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!

* * * * *

Lenore (by Edgar Allan Poe)

Lenore
by Edgar Allan Poe
[first published in 1843]

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, hast thou no tear?—weep now or nevermore!
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 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 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 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 damnèd 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!”

* * * * *

Eulalie–A Song (by Edgar Allan Poe)

Eulalie–A Song
by Edgar Allan Poe
[first published in 1843]

                   I dwelt alone
                   In a world of moan,
         And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride–
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

                   Ah, less–less bright
                   The stars of the night
         Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
                   And never a flake
                   That the vapor can make
         With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl–
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.

                   Now Doubt–now Pain
                   Come never again,
         For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
                   And all day long
                   Shines, bright and strong,
         Astarté within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye–
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

* * * * *

The Bells (by Edgar Allan Poe)

The Bells
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published posthumously in 1849)

I.

Hear the sledges with the bells–
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells–
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavour.
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells–
Of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
In the clamor and the clangour of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells–
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people–ah, the people–
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone–
They are neither man nor woman–
They are neither brute nor human–
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells–
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells–
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells–
Bells, bells, bells–
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

* * * * *

My sardonic infatuation (by Aline Rahbany)

Awake Liberty — art by John Burroughs

My sardonic infatuation
by Aline Rahbany

Today I feel like a drug addict who has just quit sniffing.
My body aches and hurts.
I have chills of cold rushing from my back to toes.
Today I decided to quit on him.
Will you scratch my back one last time?
I crave hallucinations
And sonar blow jobs
I long for the sound of him, inhaling, exhaling my poison.

Today I went to work naked.
The ashes all over my desk hypnotized my thoughts.
The gazes of people around me did not stir my self-consciousness.
I saw him in my drawer, in my cup of coffee and on my shelf.
Come take me out of here.
Somewhere, anywhere, I don’t care.
His ghost is worse than my drugs.

* * *

© 2009 by Aline Rahbany, all rights reserved
included in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library with the poet’s permission

She writes:

I dream. I dream when people are not watching. My dreams exist some place in the air – written in a dashing way. All I do is grab the air with my hands, wash my face with it, let it penetrate my body straight into my soul; only to come out in the form of words. A dreamer who puts her imaginings in words and plays on filtering them as an attempt to create her own little world. I only started translating my thoughts into writing recently. Upon taking writing as a way to escape from reality, I never knew I would go this far. My writings are pure thoughts and “raw emotions” mainly exploring different aspects of the human being.

When I am not dreaming, I am another 24 year old distorted person living in Lebanon and indulging in – down to earth – humanitarian field of work for the past two years. I have been published in Shoots & Vines, Opium Poetry 2.0, Black-Listed Magazine, Eviscerator Heaven and soon in Calliope Nerve.

Ode to a Nightingale (by John Keats)

Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats
first published in Annals of the Fine Arts, July 1819

1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
  But being too happy in thine happiness,—
    That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
          In some melodious plot
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
  Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
          And purple-stained mouth;
  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
          And leaden-eyed despairs,
  Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
  Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
  Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
  And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
    Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
          But here there is no light,
  Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
  Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
  White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
    Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
          And mid-May’s eldest child,
  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
  I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
  To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
          In such an ecstasy!
  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
    To thy high requiem become a sod.

7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that oft-times hath
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
  As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

* * *

   

Too Easy (by Paula Dawn Lietz)

photo © 2009 by Paula Dawn Lietz

Too Easy
by Paula Dawn Lietz
[originally appeared in Vol. 44 of the Other Voices International anthology]

How easy it is to write
of strife and let it
over shadow the magical
mystical intimate joys of
life…
The fresh fiddle head
curled and pulsating in
strength, preparing to
unfurl into century old
yet newly birthed fern.
The acorn strategically
placed by a squirrel —
begins with searching
roots to secure and
stabilize a sanctuary for
life too numerous to mention.
The wonder of mountains
and lush valleys.
Of lakes and rivers and the
sediments and rocks they
leave behind in proof of
their exquisite existence.
The attraction of you
and the scent of you
wrapped around my
slippery sensuous soul.
The energy radiates
from your very being
and ignites me and the
spark becomes a furious
flame.

* * *

© 2009 by Paula Dawn Lietz, all rights reserved
included in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library with the poet’s permission

She writes:

It took half a century, but I finally feel like I am striding into my own. I am taking pleasure in the beauty that is placed before me everyday that balances the cloudy days that occur.
 
Always surrounded by some form of art, a mother/artist and a father/photographer and a home/studio, I was never a willing active participant until this past year. And I now enjoy it all whether it be collages, photography, drawing or poetry.  I try to live by the motto,
“Always be in the process of becoming and never just being.”  And living that motto one realizes that the possibilities are endless.

My greatest master-pieces are my two fine sons.
And my greatest love is my husband.
We live in the vast splendor of the Canadian Prairie and it is here our hearts remain no matter where we travel.
 
Paula Dawn Lietz

Love Song (He: You have come between me) by William Carlos Williams

Love Song 
by William Carlos Williams
[from The Little Review (June 1918)]

          HE

You have come between me and the terrifying presence
of the moon, the stars, the sun and the earth
with all its crooked outgrowths.  The desolation of life
has been darkened by your shadow, but toward me
your face has been a light, your hands have been
a soft rain, the voice from between your lips
a thing that carries me as the air carries a bird.
I have spread my arms out wide feeling you about me
and looked up and taken a deep breath!  Deep,
deep! an April in every finger tip!

          SHE

From your eyes, from among what you say,
tangled like a singing bird in a green tree,
you have entered and spread down through me all
so that I treasure my youth again and wish it
never to go from me–for it is not mine but yours
that I shall hold warmly, safely within me forever.

     (after a pause)

          SHE

Your love song halts and repeats.

          HE

Your song is glib.

              

Shepherd and Goatherd (by W.B. Yeats)

1911 photo of William Butler Yeats by George Charles Beresford

Shepherd and Goatherd
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Shepherd.  That cry’s from the first cuckoo of the year.
I wished before it ceased.

Goatherd.  Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God’s Providence.
Let the young wish. But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap
From stone to stone.

Shepherd.  I am looking for strayed sheep;
Something has troubled me and in my trouble
I let them stray. I thought of rhyme alone,
For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble
And make the daylight sweet once more; but when
I had driven every rhyme into its place
The sheep had gone from theirs.

Goatherd.  I know right well
What turned so good a shepherd from his charge.

Shepherd.  He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth,
Is dead.

Goatherd.  The boy that brings my griddle-cake
Brought the bare news.

Shepherd.  He had thrown the crook away
And died in the great war beyond the sea.

Goatherd.  He had often played his pipes among my hills,
And when he played it was their loneliness,
The exultation of their stone, that cried
Under his fingers.

Shepherd.  I had it from his mother,
And his own flock was browsing at the door.

Goatherd.  How does she bear her grief? There is not a shepherd
But grows more gentle when he speaks her name,
Remembering kindness done, and how can I,
That found when I had neither goat nor grazing
New welcome and old wisdom at her fire
Till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her
Even before his children and his wife.

Shepherd.  She goes about her house erect and calm
Between the pantry and the linen-chest,
Or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks
Her labouring men, as though her darling lived,
But for her grandson now; there is no change
But such as I have seen upon her face
Watching our shepherd sports at harvest-time
When her son’s turn was over.

Goatherd.  Sing your song.
I too have rhymed my reveries, but youth
Is hot to show whatever it has found,
And till that’s done can neither work nor wait.
Old goatherds and old goats, if in all else
Youth can excel them in accomplishment,
Are learned in waiting.

Shepherd.  You cannot but have seen
That he alone had gathered up no gear,
Set carpenters to work on no wide table,
On no long bench nor lofty milking shed
As others will, when first they take possession,
But left the house as in his father’s time
As though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo,
No settled man. And now that he is gone
There’s nothing of him left but half a score
Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.

Goatherd.  You have put the thought in rhyme.

Shepherd.  I worked all day,
And when ’twas done so little had I done
That maybe “I am sorry’ in plain prose
Had sounded better to your mountain fancy.
                                                                     [He sings.]
“Like the speckled bird that steers
Thousands of leagues oversea,
And runs or a while half-flies
On his yellow legs through our meadows,
He stayed for a while; and we
Had scarcely accustomed our ears
To his speech at the break of day,
Had scarcely accustomed our eyes
To his shape at the rinsing-pool
Among the evening shadows,
When he vanished from ears and eyes.
I might have wished on the day
He came, but man is a fool.’

Goatherd.  You sing as always of the natural life,
And I that made like music in my youth
Hearing it now have sighed for that young man
And certain lost companions of my own.

Shepherd.  They say that on your barren mountain ridge
You have measured out the road that the soul treads
When it has vanished from our natural eyes;
That you have talked with apparitions.

Goatherd.  Indeed
My daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth
Have found the path my goats’ feet cannot find.

Shepherd.  Sing, for it may be that your thoughts have plucked
Some medicable herb to make our grief
Less bitter.

Goatherd.  They have brought me from that ridge
Seed-pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy.
                                                                     [Sings.]
“He grows younger every second
That were all his birthdays reckoned
Much too solemn seemed;
Because of what he had dreamed,
Or the ambitions that he served,
Much too solemn and reserved.
Jaunting, journeying
To his own dayspring,
He unpacks the loaded pern
Of all ’twas pain or joy to learn,
Of all that he had made.
The outrageous war shall fade;
At some old winding whitethorn root
He’ll practise on the shepherd’s flute,
Or on the close-cropped grass
Court his shepherd lass,
Or put his heart into some game
Till daytime, playtime seem the same;
Knowledge he shall unwind
Through victories of the mind,
Till, clambering at the cradle-sid
e,
He dreams himself his mother’s pride,
All knowledge lost in trance
Of sweeter ignorance.’

Shepherd.  When I have shut these ewes and this old ram
Into the fold, we’ll to the woods and there
Cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark
But put no name and leave them at her door.
To know the mountain and the valley have grieved
May be a quiet thought to wife and mother,
And children when they spring up shoulder-high.     

* * * * *

To read a Jesus Crisis blog about Yeats, visit
Y is for Yeats (my favorite poets from A to Z – volume 25)

For more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here

For even more Yeats, we suggest these volumes from Amazon:

   

Sonnet 63 – Against my love shall be as I am now (by Shakespeare)

LXIII.

Against my love shall be, as I am now,
With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn;
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
    And they shall live, and he in them still green.

-*-