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.

GEORGE MEREDITH.

["Poems." 1851.]

LOVE IN THE VALLEY.

UNDER yonder beech-tree standing on the green sward,
Couched with her arms behind her little head,
Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her!

Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow, Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me— Ah! would she hold me, and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel, and wayward as the swallow;

Swift as the swallow when athwart the western flood
Circleting the surface he meets his mirrored winglets,
Is that dear one in her maiden bud.

Shy as the squirrel whose nest is in the pine tops;
Gentle-ah! that she were jealous as the dove!
Full of all the wildness of the woodland creatures,
Happy in herself is the maiden that I love!

What can have taught her distrust of all I tell her?
Can she truly doubt me when looking on my brows?
Nature never teaches distrust of tender love-tales,

What can have taught her distrust of all my vows? No, she does not doubt me! on a dewy eve-tide

Whispering together beneath the listening moon,

I prayed till her check dashed, implored she faltered,
Flattered to my bowm-ah! to dy away so soon!

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirre.
Tying up her Laces, looping up her hair.

Often she thinke, Were tills wild thing wedded.

I should have more love, and much less care.” When her mother tends her before the bashful mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her earls. Often she thinks, Were this wild thing wedded.

I should lose but one for so many boys and girls."

Clambering roses peep into her chamber,

Jasmine and woodbine, breathe sweet, sweet, White-necked swallows twittering of summer,

Fill her with balm and nested peace from head to feet. Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely,

When the petals fall, and fierce bloom is on the leaves? Will the Autumn garners see her still ungathered,

When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping eaves?

Comes a sudden question-Should a strange hand pluck her!
O! what an anguish smites me at the thought,
Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels!
Can such beauty ever thus be bought?
Sometimes the huntsmen prancing down the valley

Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth;

They see as I see, mine is the fairest!

Would she were older, and could read my worth!

Are there not sweet maidens if she still deny me?
Show the bridal Heavens but one bright star?
Wherefore thus then do I chase a shadow,

Clattering one note like a brown eve-jar?

So I rhyme and reason till she darts before me,

Through the milky meadows from flower to flower she flies,

Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids

From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes.