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[page 33:]

TO ONE IN PARADISE.

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THOU wast that all 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 dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams —

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.


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Notes:

This poem was originally part of Poe's tale “The Visionary.”

This version is nearly identical with that printed in The Raven and Other Poems (1845), adopting only one of the two changes Poe marked in his own copy of The Raven and Other Poems, and adding one change in punctuation. Quotation marks have been added around the third line of the third stanza: “No more — no more — no more —.”

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[S:1 - WORKS, 1850] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - To One in Paradise (reprint)