Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Serenade” (Text-02b), Baltimore Saturday Visiter, April 20, 1833, p. 1, middle of column 4


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[page 1, column 4, continued:]

SERENADE. — BY E. A. POE.

So sweet the hour — so calm the time,

I feel it more than half a crime

When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,

To mar the silence ev'n with lute.

At rest on ocean's brilliant dies

An image of Elysium lies:

Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,

Form in the deep another seven:

Endymion nodding from above

Sees in the sea a second love:

Within the valleys dim and brown,

And on the spectral mountains [[mountain's]] crown

The wearied light is lying down:

The earth, and stars, and sea, and sky

Are redolent of sleep, as I

Am redolent of thee and thine

Enthralling love, my Adeline.

But list, O list! — so soft and low

Thy lover's voice to night shall flow

That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem

My words the music of a dream.

Thus, while no single sound too rude,

Upon thy slumber shall intrude,

Our thoughts, our souls — O God above!

In every deed shall mingle, love.


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Notes:

This poem, never collected during Poe's lifetime, was discovered by John C. French in 1917. French printed the text twice, with some alterations in punctuation, here restored from the original printings in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. There is no introductory or explanatory text in the Visiter related to the poem.

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[S:1 - BSV, 1833] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Serendade (Text-02b)