Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. J. A. Harrison), “To One in Paradise,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan PoeVol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:86


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[page 86:]

TO ONE IN PARADISE.

THOU wast all that to me, love,

For which my soul did pine —

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

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 gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, 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 thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy grey eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams —

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.


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Notes:

Harrison adopts one of the changes Poe made in the J. L. Graham copy of The Raven and Other Poems, but not both. The change he accepted was “grey eye” for “dark eye” in the final stanza. The change ignored is in the first line, where Poe indicates that “all that” should be transposed as “that all.”


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[S:0 - JAH07, 1902] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (J. A. Harrison) (To One in Paradise)