RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

1809.

["Poems of Many Years." 1846.]

THE words that trembled on your lips
Were uttered not-I know it well;
The tears that would your eyes eclipse
Were checked and smothered, ere they fell:
The looks and smiles I gained from you

Were little more than others won,

And yet you are not wholly true,

Nor wholly just what you have done.

You know, at least you might have known,
That every little grace you gave,

Your voice's somewhat lowered tone,

Your hand's faint shake, or parting wave,

Your every sympathetic look

At words that chanced your soul to touch,
While reading from some favourite book,
Were much to me-alas, how much!

You might have seen, perhaps you saw,
How all of these were steps of hope
On which I rose, in joy and awe,
Up to my passion's lofty scope;
How after each, a firmer tread
I planted on the slippery ground,

And higher raised my venturous head,
And ever new assurance found.

May be, without a further thought,
It only pleased you thus to please,
And thus to kindly feelings wrought
You measured not the sweet degrees;
Yet, though you hardly understood
Where I was following at your call,
You might I dare to say you should—
Have thought how far I had to fall.

And thus when fallen, faint, and bruised,
I see another's glad success,

I may have wrongfully accused
Your heart of vulgar fickleness:
But even now, in calm review
Of all I lost, and all I won,

I cannot deem you wholly true,
Nor wholly just what you have done.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

1811-1849.

TO HELEN.

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 upturned faces of these roses,
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death:
Fell on the upturned 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 upturned faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturned, 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. (O, Heaven! O, 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!

TO ONE IN PARADISE.

Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine;

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries, "On! On!" but o'er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of Life is o'er!

"No more-no more-no more (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams,

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.