Edgar Allan Poe: Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

6. ULALUME (continued)

I replied -- "This is nothing but dreaming.
    Let us on, by this tremulous light!
    Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
    With Hope and in Beauty to-night --
    See! -- it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
    And be sure it will lead us aright --
We safely may trust to a gleaming
    That cannot but guide us aright,
    Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
    And tempted her out of her gloom --
    And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista --
    But were stopped by the door of a tomb --
    By the door of a legended tomb: --
And I said -- "What is written, sweet sister,
    On the door of this legended tomb?"
    She replied -- "Ulalume -- Ulalume --
    'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
    As the leaves that were crisped and sere --
    As the leaves that were withering and sere --
And I cried -- "It was surely October
    On this very night of last year,
    That I journeyed -- I journeyed down here! --
    That I brought a dread burden down here --
    On this night, of all nights in the year,
    Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber --
    This misty mid region of Weir: --
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber --
    This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

1847