We noted not the dim lake of Auber

(Though once we had journeyed down here) We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

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 surely 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!

'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

54 Ah: Oh (all others); ah: oh (all others).

55 Ah Oh (all others).

57 Wings: Plumes (P.J.); till: until (1850). 59 Plumes: Wings (P.J.).

69 surely safely (all others).

76 But: And (A. W.R., H.J.); were: we (P.J.),

75

80

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves that were crispéd and sere

As the leaves that were withering and sere;

85

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 hath 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."

९९

Said we, then the two, then : Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls —
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls-

To bar up our way and to ban it

From the secret that lies in these wolds

90

95

90 Ah: Oh (A.W.R., H.J., P.J., L.W.); hath: has (all others except

P.P.A.).

94 This: In the (A. W. R., H.J., L. W., P.P.A.).

95-104 Omitted by P.J. and 1850.

101 Have Had (A. W. R., H.J.).

AN ENIGMA

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once

As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff

Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.

The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles

ephemeral and so transparent

But this is, now, you may depend upon it
Stable, opaque, immortal

all by dint

Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't.

ΤΟ

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained" the power of words

denied that ever

5

A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue;
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words two foreign soft dissyllables -
Italian tones made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew

That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill "
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,

Title Sonnet (U.M.).

10 tuckermanities: Petrarchanities (U.M.).

ΤΟ

Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,"
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
I cannot write- I cannot speak or think,
Alas, I cannot feel; for 't is not feeling,
This standing motionless upon the golden
Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling as I see upon the right,

What a world of merriment their melody foretells !

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

26 empurpled: unpurpled (1850).

Title The Bells.— A Song (U. M. [December, 1849]).

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20

25

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ΙΟ