To One In Paradise
by Edgar Allan Poe

US poet, critic and short story writer. Poe is best known for his macabre horror stories including The Fall of the House of Usher, The Gold Bug and The Black Cat (1842). His key poems include Lenore (1831), The Raven (1842), Ulalume (1847). He also wrote some critical essays including The Philosophy of Composition (1846), Time and Space (1844) and The Poetic Principle (1850), and a novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). Poe had a great influence on a number of writers including Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.

← Previous Poem Edgar Allan Poe Next Poem →

To One In Paradise
by Edgar Allan Poe

Thou wast all that to me, love,
    For which my soul did pine --
A green isle in the sea, love,
    A fountain and a shrime,
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 guld!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, mothionless, 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 thunder0blasted 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.

← Previous Poem Edgar Allan Poe Next Poem →

To One In Paradise by Edgar Allan Poe