My
beautiful
one!
Edgar Allen Poe
--_Merry Wives
of Windsor_. [William Shakespeare]
"'Neath blue-bell or streamer--
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
*The moonbeam away--
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like--eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now--
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours--
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too--
(O! how, without you, Love!
Could angels be blest? )
Those kisses of true love
That lull'd ye to rest!
Up! --shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night--
It would weigh down your flight;
And true love caresses--
O! leave them apart!
* In Scripture is this passage--"The sun shall not harm
thee by day, nor the moon by night. " It is perhaps not
generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of
producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed
to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently
alludes.
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
*Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?
Ligeia! whatever
Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep--
But the strains still arise
Which _thy_ vigilance keep--
The sound of the rain
Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower--
? The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
* The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.
** I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am
now unable to obtain and quote from memory:--"The verie
essence and, as it were, springe-heade, and origine of all
musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of
the forest do make when they growe. "
Are the music of things--
But are modell'd, alas! --
Away, then my dearest,
O! hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon-ray--
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast--
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid--
Some have left the cool glade, and
* Have slept with the bee--
Arouse them my maiden,
On moorland and lea--
Go! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
The musical number
They slumber'd to hear--
For what can awaken
An angel so soon
* The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be
moonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty
lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is,
however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud
Halcro--in whose mouth I admired its effect:
O!
of Windsor_. [William Shakespeare]
"'Neath blue-bell or streamer--
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
*The moonbeam away--
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like--eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now--
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours--
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too--
(O! how, without you, Love!
Could angels be blest? )
Those kisses of true love
That lull'd ye to rest!
Up! --shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night--
It would weigh down your flight;
And true love caresses--
O! leave them apart!
* In Scripture is this passage--"The sun shall not harm
thee by day, nor the moon by night. " It is perhaps not
generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of
producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed
to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently
alludes.
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
*Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?
Ligeia! whatever
Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep--
But the strains still arise
Which _thy_ vigilance keep--
The sound of the rain
Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower--
? The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
* The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.
** I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am
now unable to obtain and quote from memory:--"The verie
essence and, as it were, springe-heade, and origine of all
musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of
the forest do make when they growe. "
Are the music of things--
But are modell'd, alas! --
Away, then my dearest,
O! hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon-ray--
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast--
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid--
Some have left the cool glade, and
* Have slept with the bee--
Arouse them my maiden,
On moorland and lea--
Go! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
The musical number
They slumber'd to hear--
For what can awaken
An angel so soon
* The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be
moonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty
lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is,
however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud
Halcro--in whose mouth I admired its effect:
O!
