LENORE

Ah, broken is the golden bowl!

the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river:
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? -weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

The text of A Paan, inasmuch as it differs markedly from later versions of Lenore, is presented here in its entirety, the text of 1831 being followed. The variations from the Southern Literary Messenger are given in the bracketed footnotes. Below it is given the Pioneer text, which is in verbal agreement, except in line 4, with the text of the Saturday Museum.

Come, let the burial rite be read - the funeral song be sung!
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

5

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, and ye hated her for her pride;

10

And, when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her that she died:
How shall the ritual, then, be read—the requiem how be sung
By you
by yours, the evil eye, by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; yet rave not thus! but let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath gone before, with Hope that flew beside, 15
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride –
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes —
The life still there upon her hair, the death upon her eyes.

Go up to God so mournfully that she may feel no wrong!

13 yet but (all other texts); but: and (all other texts).

30

35

40

avaunt! to friends from fiends the indignant ghost is

From Hell unto a high estate within the utmost Heaven

From moan and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven:

20 Avaunt!-avaunt! to friends from fiends: To friends above, from

fiends below (Graham's, B.J., 1845, P.P.A.).

20-26 Graham's, B.J., 1845, and P.P.A. transpose these lines so that

the sequence becomes 25, 26, 23, 24, 20, 21, 22.

21 within the utmost: far up within the (all other texts).

22 moan: grief (all other texts except B.J. and Graham's).

23

Let no bell toll, then, lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth!
And I-to-night my heart is light: no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!"

THE VALLEY OF UNREST

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

(1831)

[A PEAN (1831)]

XI.

Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight

With a Pæan of old days.

The text of The Valley Nis differs radically from later versions of The Valley of Unrest, and hence is given here in its entirety, the edition of 1831 being followed. The variations of the Southern Literary Messenger are given at the end in brackets.

23 then: Omitted in Graham's, B.J., 1845, P.P.A.; sweet is inserted

before "soul" by Graham's, B.J., 1845, and P.P.A.

25 And I: Avaunt (Graham's, B.J., 1845, P.P.A.).

Title The Valley Nis (1831, S. L.M.).