Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL POEM; TO EDGAR ALLAN POE, by SARAH HELEN POWER WHITMAN


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BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL POEM; TO EDGAR ALLAN POE, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, thou grim and ancient raven
Last Line: Shall our lofty eyrie share!
Subject(s): Holidays; Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849); Valentine's Day


"-- A raven true
As ever flapped his heavy wing against
The window of the sick, and croaked, 'Despair.'"
Young's "Revenge."

Oh, thou grim and ancient Raven,
From the Night's Plutonian shore,
Oft, in dreams, thy ghastly pinions
Wave and flutter round my door --
Oft thy shadow dims the moonlight
Sleeping on my chamber floor!

Romeo talks of "white doves trooping
Amid crows, athwart the night;"
But to see thy dark wing swooping
Down the silver path of light,
Amid swans and dovelets stooping,
Were, to me, a nobler sight.

Oft, amid the twilight glooming,
Round some grim, ancestral tower,
In the lurid distance looming,
I can see thy pinions lower --
Hear thy sullen storm-cry booming
Thro' the lonely midnight hour.

Midst the roaring of machinery,
And the dismal shriek of steam,
While each popinjay and parrot,
Makes the golden age his theme,
Oft, methinks, I hear thee croaking,
"All is but an idle dream."

While these warbling "guests of summer"
Prate of "Progress" evermore,
And, by dint of iron foundries,
Would this golden age restore,
Still, methinks, I hear thee croaking,
Hoarsely croaking, "Nevermore."

Oft, this work-day world forgetting,
From its turmoil curtained snug,
By the sparkling ember sitting,
On the richly broidered rug,
Something, round about me flitting,
Glimmers like a "Golden-Bug."

Dreamily its path I follow,
In a "bee-line," to the moon,
Till, into some dreary hollow
Of the midnight, sinking soon,
Lo! he glides away before me,
And I lose the golden boon.

Oft, like Proserpine, I wander
On the Night's Plutonian shore,
Hoping, fearing, while I ponder
On thy loved and lost Lenore,
Till thy voice, like distant thunder,
Sounds across the lonely moor.

From thy wing, one purple feather
Wafted o'er my chamber floor,
Like a shadow o'er the heather,
Charms my vagrant fancy more
Than all the flowers I used to gather
On "Idalia's velvet shore."

Then, oh! grim and ghastly Raven!
Wilt thou, "to my heart and ear,
Be a Raven true as ever
Flapped his wings and croaked, 'Despair?'"
Not a bird that roams the forest
Shall our lofty eyrie share!





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