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In The One Instance, The Dreamerloses Sight Of This Object In A Wilderness Of Deductions And Suggestionsuntilhe Finds The Incitamentum, Or First Cause Of His Musings,... Forgotten. In My Case, The Primary Object Was Invariably Frivolous, Although Assuming, Through The Medium Of My Distempered Vision, A Refracted And Unreal Importance.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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In The One Instance,

Edgar Allan Poe

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In The One Instance, The Dreamerloses Sight Of This Object In A Wilderness Of Deductions And Suggestionsuntilhe Finds The Incitamentum, Or First Cause Of His Musings,... Forgotten. In My Case, The Primary Object Was Invariably Frivolous, Although Assuming, Through The Medium Of My Distempered Vision, A Refracted And Unreal Importance.

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It May Well Be Doubted Whether Human Ingenuity Can Construct An Enigma... Which Human Ingenuity May Not, By Proper Application, Resolve.

In Our Endeavors To Recall To Memory Something Long Forgotten, We Often Find Ourselves Upon The Very Verge Of Remembrance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.

Where The Good And The Bad And The Worst And The Best Have Gone To Their Eternal Rest.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness - And Usually Prefers Silence To Saying Something Which Is Not Everything It Should Be.

There Are Chords In The Hearts Of The Most Reckless Which Cannot Be Touched Without Emotion.

The Most 'popular,' The Most 'successful' Writers Among Us (for A Brief Period, At Least) Are, 99 Times Out Of A Hundred, Persons Of Mere Effrontery-in A Word, Busy-bodies, Toadies, Quacks.

I Intend To Put Up With Nothing That I Can Put Down.

Years Of Love Have Been Forgot, In The Hatred Of A Minute.

...the Agony Of My Soul Found Vent In One Loud, Long And Final Scream Of Despair.

This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

Men Of Genius Are Far More Abundant Than Is Supposed. In Fact, To Appreciate Thoroughly The Work Of What We Call Genius, Is To Possess All The Genius By Which The Work Was Produced.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

Thou Wouldst Be Loved? - Then Let Thy Heart From Its Present Pathway Part Not! Being Everything Which Now Thou Art, Be Nothing Which Thou Art Not. So With The World Thy Gentle Ways, Thy Grace, Thy More Than Beauty, Shall Be An Endless Theme Of Praise, And Love - A Simple Duty.

...and, All At Once, The Moon Arouse Through The Thin Ghastly Mist, And Was Crimson In Color... And They Lynx Which Dwelleth Forever In The Tomb, Came Out Therefrom. And Lay Down At The Feet Of The Demon. And Looked At Him Steadily In The Face.

Yet, Mad Am I Not — And Very Surely Do I Not Dream.

Tell Me Truly, I Implore-- Is There-- Is There Balm In Gilead?--tell Me--tell Me, I Implore!

A Poem In My Opinion, Is Opposed To A Work Of Science By Having For Its Immediate Object, Pleasure, Not Truth.

Gaily Bedight, A Gallant Knight, In Sunshine And In Shadow, Had Journeyed Long, Singing A Song, In Search Of Eldorado. But He Grew Old— This Knight So Bold— And O’er His Heart A Shadow— Fell As He Found No Spot Of Ground That Looked Like Eldorado. And, As His Strength Failed Him At Length, He Met A Pilgrim Shadow— ‘shadow,’ Said He, ‘where Can It Be— This Land Of Eldorado?’ ‘over The Mountains Of The Moon, Down The Valley Of The Shadow, Ride, Boldly Ride,’ The Shade Replied,— ‘if You Seek For Eldorado!

I Am Above The Weakness Of Seeking To Establish A Sequence Of Cause And Effect, Between The Disaster And The Atrocity.

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!

I Am Shadow, And My Dwelling Is Near To The Catacombs Of Ptolemais, And Hard By Those Dim Plains Of Helusion Which Border Upon The Foul Charonian Canal." And Then Did We, The Seven, Start From Our Seats In Horror, And Stand Trembling, And Shuddering, And Aghast, For The Tones In The Voice Of The Shadow Were Not The Tones Of Any One Being, But Of A Multitude Of Beings, And, Varying In Their Cadences From Syllable To Syllable Fell Duskly Upon Our Ears In The Well-remembered And Familiar Accents Of Many Thousand Departed Friends.

Sensations Are The Great Things, After All. Should You Ever Be Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations; They Will Be Worth To You Ten Guineas A Sheet.

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

From A Proud Tower In The Town, Death Looks Gigantically Down.

But Evil Things, In Robes Of Sorrow, Assailed The Monarch's High Estate; (ah, Let Us Mourn, For Never Morrow Shall Dawn Upon Him Desolate!) And Round About His Home The Glory That Blushed And Bloomed, Is But A Dim-remembered Story Of The Old Time Entombed.

Either The Memory Of Past Bliss Is The Anguish Of To-day; Or The Agonies Which Are Have Their Origins In Ecstasies Which Might Have Been.

In Efforts To Soar Above Our Nature, We Invariably Fall Below It.

If Any Ambitious Man Have A Fancy To Revolutionize, At One Effort, The Universal World Of Human Thought, Human Opinion, And Human Sentiment, The Opportunity Is His Own -- The Road To Immortal Renown Lies Straight, Open, And Unencumbered Before Him. All That He Has To Do Is To Write And Publish A Very Little Book. Its Title Should Be Simple -- A Few Plain Words -- My Heart Laid Bare. But -- This Little Book Must Be True To Its Title.

In Visions Of The Dark Night I Have Dreamed Of Joy Departed- But A Waking Dream Of Life And Light Hath Left Me Broken-hearted. Ah! What Is Not A Dream By Day To Him Whose Eyes Are Cast On Things Around Him With A Ray Turned Back Upon The Past? That Holy Dream- That Holy Dream, While All The World Were Chiding, Hath Cheered Me As A Lovely Beam A Lonely Spirit Guiding. What Though That Light, Thro' Storm And Night, So Trembled From Afar- What Could There Be More Purely Bright In Truth's Day-star?

By Undue Profundity We Perplex And Enfeeble Thought; And It Is Possible To Make Even Venus Herself Vanish From The Firmament By A Scrutiny Too Sustained, Too Concentrated, Or Too Direct.

There Are Few Persons Who Have Not, At Some Period Of Their Lives, Amused Themselves In Retracing The Steps By Which Particular Conclusions Of Their Own Minds Have Been Attained. The Occupation Is Often Full Of Interest And He Who Attempts It For The First Time Is Astonished By The Apparently Illimitable Distance And Incoherence Between The Starting-point And The Goal.

With Me Poetry Has Not Been A Purpose, But A Passion.

They Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night.

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting On The Pallid Bust Of Pallas Just Above My Chamber Door; And His Eyes Have All The Seeming Of A Demon's That Is Dreaming, And The Lamplight O'er Him Streaming Throws His Shadow On The Floor, And My Soul From Out That Shadow, That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted - Nevermore.

In The Heaven's Above, The Angels, Whispering To One Another, Can Find, Among Their Burning Terms Of Love, None So Devotional As That Of 'mother.

But Psyche Uplifting Her Finger Said: Sadly This Star I Mistrust

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

There Was Much Of The Beautiful, Much Of The Wanton, Much Of The Bizarre, Something Of The Terrible, And Not A Little Of That Which Might Have Excited Disgust.

And Now Was Acknowledged The Presence Of The Red Death. He Had Come Like A Thief In The Night. And One By One Dropped The Revelers In The Blood-bedewed Halls Of Their Revel, And Died Each In The Despairing Posture Of His Fall. And The Life Of The Ebony Clock Went Out With That Of The Last Of The Gay. And The Flames Of The Tripods Expired. And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

The Eye, Like A Shattered Mirror, Multiplies The Images Of Sorrow

I Have Before Suggested That A Genuine Blackguard Is Never Without A Pocket-handkerchief.

Believe Only Half Of What You See And Nothing That You Hear.

As For Republicanism, No Analogy Could Be Found For It Upon The Face Of The Earth—unless We Except The Case Of The "prairie Dogs," An Exception Which Seems To Demonstrate, If Anything, That Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government—for Dogs.

During The Whole Of A Dull, Dark, And Soundless Day In The Autumn Of The Year, When The Clouds Hung Oppressively Low In The Heavens, I Had Been Passing Alone, On Horseback, Through A Singularly Dreary Tract Of Country; And At Length Found Myself, As The Shades Of The Evening Drew On, Within View Of The Melancholy House Of Usher. I Know Not How It Was - But, With The First Glimpse Of The Building, A Sense Of Insufferable Gloom Pervaded My Spirit.

When, Indeed, Men Speak Of Beauty, They Mean, Precisely, Not A Quality, As Is Supposed, But An Effect - They Refer, In Short, Just To That Intense And Pure Elevation Of Soul - Not Of Intellect, Or Of Heart.

If You Run Out Of Ideas Follow The Road; You'll Get There

To Be Thoroughly Conversant With Man’s Heart, Is To Take Our Final Lesson In The Iron-clasped Volume Of Despair

The Most Natural, And, Consequently, The Truest And Most Intense Of The Human Affections Are Those Which Arise In The Heart As If By Electric Sympathy.

The Death Then Of A Beautiful Woman Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World, And Equally Is It Beyond Doubt That The Lips Best Suited For Such Topic Are Those Of A Bereaved Lover.

A Short Story Is "a Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour, To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal...having Conceived, With Deliberate Care, A Certain Unique Or Single Effect To Be Wrought Out.

The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.

The History Of All Magazines Shows Plainly That Those Which Have Attained Celebrity Were Indebted For It To Articles Similar In Natureto Berenice--although, I Grant You, Far Superior In Style And Execution. I Say Similar In Nature. You Ask Me In What Does This Nature Consist? In The Ludicrous Heightened Into The Grotesque: The Fearful Coloured Into The Horrible: The Witty Exaggerated Into The Burlesque: The Singular Wrought Out Into The Strange And Mystical.

Tell A Scoundrel, Three Or Four Times A Day, That He Is The Pink Of Probity, And You Make Him At Least The Perfection Of "respectability" In Good Earnest. On The Other Hand, Accuse An Honorable Man, Too Petinaciously, Of Being A Villain, And You Fill Him With A Perverse Ambition To Show You That You Are Not Altogether In The Wrong.

It Is Impossible To Say How First The Idea Entered My Brain, But, Once Conceived, It Haunted Me Day And Night.

A Mystery, And A Dream, Should My Early Life Seem.

Perched Upon A Bust Of Pallas, Just Above My Chamber Door,- Perched, And Sat, And Nothing More.

How Many Good Books Suffer Neglect Through The Inefficiency Of Their Beginnings!

I Stand Amid The Roar Of A Surf-tormented Shore, And I Hold Within My Hand Grains Of Golden Sand- How Few! Yet How They Creep Through My Fingers To The Deep, While I Weep- While I Weep!

True, Nervous, Very, Very Dreadfully Nervous I Had Been And Am, But Why Will Say That I Am Mad?! The Disease Had Haunted My Senses, Not Destroyed, Not Dulled Them. Of All The Sense Of Hearing Acute.

Villains!' I Shrieked. 'dissemble No More! I Admit The Deed! Tear Up The Planks! Here, Here! It Is The Beating Of His Hideous Heart!

I Am Excessively Slothful, And Wonderfully Industrious-by Fits. There Are Epochs When Any Kind Of Mental Exercise Is Torture, And When Nothing Yields Me Pleasure But The Solitary Communion With The 'mountains & The Woods'-the 'altars' Of Byron. I Have Thus Rambled And Dreamed Away Whole Months, And Awake, At Last, To A Sort Of Mania For Composition. Then I Scribble All Day, And Read All Night, So Long As The Disease Endures.

In The Tale Proper--where There Is No Space For Development Of Character Or For Great Profusion And Variety Of Incident--mere Construction Is, Of Course, Far More Imperatively Demanded Than In The Novel.

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered Weak And Weary.

From Childhood's Hour I Have Not Been. As Others Were, I Have Not Seen. As Others Saw, I Could Not Awaken. My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone. And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

Odors Have An Altogether Peculiar Force, In Affecting Us Through Association; A Force Differing Essentially From That Of Objects Addressing The Touch, The Taste, The Sight Or The Hearing.

Believe Me, There Exists No Such Dilemma As That In Which A Gentleman Is Placed When He Is Forced To Reply To A Blackguard.

Yes I Now Feel That It Was Then On That Evening Of Sweet Dreams- That The Very First Dawn Of Human Love Burst Upon The Icy Night Of My Spirit. Since That Period I Have Never Seen Nor Heard Your Name Without A Shiver Half Of Delight Half Of Anxiety.

Ghastly Grim And Ancient Raven Wandering From The Nightly Shore - Tell Me What Thy Lordly Name Is On The Night's Plutonian Shore! Quoth The Raven, `nevermore.

It Is More Than Probable That I Am Not Understood; But I Fear, Indeed, That It Is In No Manner Possible To Convey To The Mind Of The Merely General Reader, An Adequate Idea Of That Nervous Intensity Of Interest With Which, In My Case, The Powers Of Meditation (not To Speak Technically) Busied And Buried Themselves, In The Contemplation Of Even The Most Ordinary Objects Of The Universe.

...for Her Whom In Life Thou Dids't Abhor, In Death Thou Shalt Adore

The Boundaries Which Divide Life From Death Are At Best Shadowy And Vague. Who Shall Say Where The One Ends, And Where The Other Begins?

Whether People Grow Fat By Joking, Or Whether There Is Something In Fat Itself Which Predisposes To A Joke, I Have Never Been Quite Able To Determine.

There Are Few Cases In Which Mere Popularity Should Be Considered A Proper Test Of Merit; But The Case Of Song-writing Is, I Think, One Of The Few.

He Is, As You Say, A Remarkable Horse, A Prodigious Horse, Although As You Very Justly Observe, A Suspicious And Untractable Character.

The Mental Features Discoursed Of As The Analytical, Are, In Themselves, But Little Susceptible Of Analysis. We Appreciate Them Only In Their Effects. We Know Of Them, Among Other Things, That They Are Always To Their Possessor, When Inordinately Possessed, A Source Of The Liveliest Enjoyment.

That Single Thought Is Enough. The Impulse Increases To A Wish, The Wish To A Desire, The Desire To An Uncontrollable Longing, And The Longing (to The Deep Regret And Mortification Of The Speaker, And In Defiance Of All Consequences,) Is Indulged.

Sleep, Those Little Slices Of Death — How I Loathe Them.

In [chess], Where The Pieces Have Different And "bizarre" Motions, With Various And Variable Values, What Is Only Complex, Is Mistaken (a Not Unusual Error) For What Is Profound

The Generous Critic Fann'd The Poet's Fire, And Taught The World With Reason To Admire.

One Half Of The Pleasure Experienced At A Theatre Arises From The Spectator's Sympathy With The Rest Of The Audience, And, Especially From His Belief In Their Sympathy With Him.

The Nose Of A Mob Is Its Imagination. By This, At Any Time, It Can Be Quietly Led.

[e]very Plot, Worth The Name, Must Be Elaborated To Its Dénouement Before Anything Be Attempted With The Pen. It Is Only With The Dénouement Constantly In View That We Can Plot Its Indispensable Air Of Consequence, Or Causation, By Making The Incidents, And Especially The Tone At All Points Tend To The Development Of The Intention.

After Reading All That Has Been Written, And After Thinking All That Can Be Thought, On The Topics Of God And The Soul, The Man Who Has A Right To Say That He Thinks At All, Will Find Himself Face To Face With The Conclusion That, On These Topics, The Most Profound Thought Is That Which Can Be The Least Easily Distinguished From The Most Superficial Sentiment.

A Fearful Instance Of The Ill Consequences Attending Upon Irascibility - Alive, With The Qualifications Of The Dead - Dead, With The Propensities Of The Living - An Anomaly On The Face Of The Earth - Being Very Calm, Yet Breathless.

You Need Not Attempt To Shake Off Or To Banter Off Romance. It Is An Evil You Will Never Get Rid Of To The End Of Your Days. It Is A Part Of Yourself ... Of Your Soul. Age Will Only Mellow It A Little, And Give It A Holier Tone.

There Are Two Bodies - The Rudimental And The Complete; Corresponding With The Two Conditions Of The Worm And The Butterfly. What We Call "death," Is But The Painful Metamorphosis. Our Present Incarnation Is Progressive, Preparatory, Temporary. Our Future Is Perfected, Ultimate, Immortal. The Ultimate Life Is The Full Design.

There Is Something In The Unselfish And Self-sacrificing Love Of A Brute, Which Goes Directly To The Heart Of Him Who Has Had Frequent Occasion To Test The Paltry Friendship And Gossamer Fidelity Of Mere Man.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.

You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.

In Other Words, I Believed, And Still Do Believe, That Truth, Is Frequently Of Its Own Essence, Superficial, And That, In Many Cases, The Depth Lies More In The Abysses Where We Seek Her, Than In The Actual Situations Wherein She May Be Found.

Scorching My Seared Heart With A Pain, Not Hell Shall Make Me Fear Again.

It All Depends On The Robber's Knowledge Of The Loser's Knowledge Of The Robber. - Daupin

You Will Observe That The Stories Told Are All About Money-seekers, Not About Money-finders.

...for The Question Is Of Will, And Not, As The Insanity Of Logic Has Assumed Of Power. It Is Not That The Deity Cannot Modify His Laws, But That We Insult Him In Imagining A Possible Necessity For Modification. In Their Origin These Laws Were Fashioned To Embrace All Contingencies Which Could Lie In The Future. With God All Is Now.

If In Many Of My Productions Terror Has Been The Thesis, I Maintain That Terror Is Not Of Germany, But Of The Soul.

I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.

The Rain Came Down Upon My Head - Unshelter'd. And The Wind Rendered Me Mad And Deaf And Blind.

By A Route Obscure And Lonely Haunted By Ill Angels Only, Where An Eidolon, Named Night, On A Black Throne Reigns Upright, I Have Reached These Lands But Newly From An Ultimate Dim Thule -- From A Wild, Weird Clime That Lieth, Sublime, Out Of Space, Out Of Time.

A Dirge For Her The Doubly Dead In That She Died So Young.

A Wrong Is Unredressed When Retribution Overtakes Its Redresser. It Is Equally Unredressed When The Avenger Fails To Make Himself Felt As Such To Him Who Has Done The Wrong.

One Morning, In Cool Blood, I Slipped A Noose About Its Neck And Hung It To The Limb Of A Tree; — Hung It With The Tears Streaming From My Eyes, And With The Bitterest Remorse At My Heart; — Hung It Because I Knew That It Had Loved Me, And Because I Felt It Had Given Me No Reason Of Offence; — Hung It Because I Knew That In So Doing I Was Committing A Sin — A Deadly Sin That Would So Jeopardize My Immortal Soul As To Place It — If Such A Thing Were Possible — Even Beyond The Reach Of The Infinite Mercy Of The Most Merciful And Most Terrible God.

It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

I Am Actuated By An Ambition Which I Believe To Be An Honourable One The Ambition Of Serving The Great Cause Of Truth, While Endeavouring To Forward The Literature Of The Country.

If A Man Deceives Me Once, Shame On Him; If He Deceives Me Twice, Shame On Me.

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence.

No Murmur Arose From Its Bed, And So Gently It Wandered Along, That The Pearly Pebbles Upon Which We Loved To Gaze, Far Down Within Its Bosom, Stirred Not At All, But Lay In A Motionless Content, Each In Its Own Old Station, Shining On Gloriously Forever.

Not Hear It? --yes, I Hear It, And Have Heard It. Long --long --long --many Minutes, Many Hours, Many Days, Have I Heard It --yet I Dared Not --oh, Pity Me, Miserable Wretch That I Am! --i Dared Not --i Dared Not Speak! We Have Put Her Living In The Tomb!

How Much More Intense Is The Excitement Wrought In The Feelings Of A Crowd By The Contemplation Of Human Agony, Than That Brought About By The Most Appalling Spectacles Of Inanimate Matter.

A Strong Argument For The Religion Of Christ Is This - That Offences Against Charity Are About The Only Ones Which Men On Their Death-beds Can Be Made - Not To Understand - But To Feel - As Crime.

We Now Demand The Light Artillery Of The Intellect; We Need The Curt, The Condensed, The Pointed, The Readily Diffused - In Place Of The Verbose, The Detailed, The Voluminous, The Inaccessible. On The Other Hand, The Lightness Of The Artillery Should Not Degenerate Into Pop-gunnery - By Which Term We May Designate The Character Of The Greater Portion Of The Newspaper Press - Their Sole Legitimate Object Being The Discussion Of Ephemeral Matters In An Ephemeral Manner.

Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!

Then, Methought, The Air Grew Denser, Perfumed From An Unseen Censer Swung By Seraphim Whose Footfalls Tinkled On The Tufted Floor. "wretch," I Cried, "thy God Hath Lent Thee--by These Angels He Hath Sent Thee-- Respite--respite And Nepenthe From Thy Memories Of Lenore! Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!" Quothe The Raven, "nevermore.

Boston: Their Hotels Are Bad. Their Pumpkin Pies Are Delicious. Their Poetry Is Not So Good.

Read This And Thought Of You: Through Joy And Through Sorrow, I Wrote. Through Hunger And Through Thirst, I Wrote. Through Good Report And Through Ill Report, I Wrote. Through Sunshine And Through Moonshine, I Wrote. What I Wrote It Is Unnecessary To Say. ~ Edgar Allen Poe

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

And My Soul From Out That Shadow That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted -- Nevermore!

Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.

Indeed, There Is An Eloquence In True Enthusiasm That Is Not To Be Doubted.

I Fashion The Expression Of My Face, As Accurately As Possible, In Accordance With The Expression Of His, And Then Wait To See What Thoughts Or Sentiments Arise In My Mind Or Heart, As If To Match Or Correspond With The Expression.

I Seemed To Be Upon The Verge Of Comprehension, Without The Power To Comprehend As Men, At Time, Find Themselves Upon The Brink Of Rememberance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.

A Fool, For Example, Thinks Shakespeare A Great Poet . . . Yet The Fool Has Never Read Shakespeare.

A Short Story Must Have A Single Mood And Every Sentence Must Build Towards It.

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

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 Nevermore!

I Have Made No Money. I Am As Poor Now As Ever I Was In My Life - Except In Hope, Which Is By No Means Bankable.

If A Poem Hasn't Ripped Apart Your Soul; You Haven't Experienced Poetry.

Most Writers - Poets In Especial - Prefer Having It Understood That They Compose By A Species Of Fine Frenzy - An Ecstatic Intuition - And Would Positively Shudder At Letting The Public Take A Peep Behind The Scenes.

And The Life Of The Ebony Clock Went Out With That Of The Last Of The Gay. And The Flames Of The Tripods Expired. And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

And Because Our Reason Violently Deters Us From The Brink, Therefore, Do We The More Impetuously Approach It. There Is No Passion In Nature So Demoniacally Impatient, As That Of Him, Who Shuddering Upon The Edge Of A Precipice, Thus Meditates A Plunge. To Indulge For A Moment, In Any Attempt At Thought, Is To Be Inevitably Lost; For Reflection But Urges Us To Forbear, And Therefore It Is, I Say, That We Cannot. If There Be No Friendly Arm To Check Us, Or If We Fail In A Sudden Effort To Prostrate Ourselves Backward From The Abyss, We Plunge, And Are Destroyed.

Sound-- That Stealeth Ever On The Ear Of Him Who, Musing, Gazeth On The Distance Dim, And Sees The Darkness Coming As A Cloud-- Is Not Its Form--its Voice--most Palpable And Loud?

In One Case Out Of A Hundred A Point Is Excessively Discussed Because It Is Obscure; In The Ninety-nine Remaining It Is Obscure Because It Is Excessively Discussed.

And The Silken Sad Uncertain Rustling Of Each Purple Curtain Thrilled Me — Filled Me With Fantastic Terrors Never Felt Before; So That Now, To Still The Beating Of My Heart, I Stood Repeating, Tis Some Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door — Some Late Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door; — This It Is, And Nothing More.

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence– Whether Much That Is Glorious– Whether All That Is Profound– Does Not Spring From Disease Of Thought– From Moods Of Mind Exalted At The Expense Of The General Intellect.

All Religion, My Friend, Is Simply Evolved Out Of Fraud, Fear, Greed, Imagination, And Poetry.

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor.

I Remained Too Much Inside My Head And Ended Up Losing My Mind.

Deep In Earth My Love Is Lying And I Must Weep Alone.

Coincidences, In General, Are Great Stumbling Blocks In The Way Of That Class Of Thinkers Who Have Been Educated To Know Nothing Of The Theory Of Probabilities- That Theory To Which The Most Glorious Objects Of Human Research Are Indebted For The Most Glorious Of Illustration.

The Writer Who Neglects Punctuation, Or Mispunctuates, Is Liable To Be Misunderstood For The Want Of Merely A Comma, It Often Occurs That An Axiom Appears A Paradox, Or That A Sarcasm Is Converted Into A Sermonoid.

That Man Is Not Truly Brave Who Is Afraid Either To Seem Or To Be, When It Suits Him, A Coward.

And Now Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Overacuteness Of The Senses?

The Want Of An International Copy-right Law, By Rendering It Nearly Impossible To Obtain Anything From The Booksellers In The Wayof Remuneration For Literary Labor, Has Had The Effect Of Forcing Many Of Our Very Best Writers Into The Service Of The Magazines And Reviews.

I Fell In Love With Melancholy

Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme, To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells, From The Bells, Bells, Bells.

To Die Laughing Must Be The Most Glorious Of All Glorious Deaths!

The Sole Purpose Is To Provide Infinite Springs, At Which The Soul May Allay The Eternal Thirst To Know Which Is Forever Unquenchable Within It, Since To Quench It, Would Be To Extinguish The Soul's Self.

The Best Chess-player In Christendom May Be Little More Than The Best Player Of Chess; But Proficiency In Whist Implies Capacity For Success In All Those More Important Undertakings Where Mind Struggles With Mind.

Children Are Never Too Tender To Be Whipped. Like Tough Beefsteaks, The More You Beat Them, The More Tender They Become.

In For Ever Knowing, We Are For Ever Blessed; But To Know All Were The Curse Of A Fiend

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

I Must Perish In This Deplorable Folly. Thus, Thus, And Not Otherwise, Shall I Be Lost. I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves, But In Their Results. I Shudder At The Thought Of Any, Even The Most Trivial, Incident, Which May Operate Upon This Intolerable Agitation Of Soul. I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect-in Terror. In This Unnerved-in This Pitiable Condition-i Feel That The Period Will Sooner Or Later Arrive When I Must Abandon Life And Reason Together, In Some Struggle With The Grim Phantasm, Fear.

I Would Define, In Brief, The Poetry Of Words As The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty. Its Sole Arbiter Is Taste. With The Intellect Or With The Conscience, It Has Only Collateral Relations. Unless Incidentally, It Has No Concern Whatever Either With Duty Or With Truth.

The World Is A Great Ocean, Upon Which We Encounter More Tempestuous Storms Than Calms.

I Was Cautious In What I Said Before The Young Lady; For I Could Not Be Sure That She Was Sane; And, In Fact, There Was A Certain Restless Brilliancy About Her Eyes That Half Led Me To Imagine She Was Not.

Those Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night. In Their Gray Visions They Obtain Glimpses Of Eternity, And Thrill, In Waking, To Find That They Have Been Upon The Verge Of The Great Secret. In Snatches, They Learn Something Of The Wisdom Which Is Of Good, And More Of The Mere Knowledge Which Is Of Evil.

The Goodness Of Your True Pun Is In The Direct Ratio Of Its Intolerability.

The Result Of Law Inviolate Is Perfection–right–negative Happiness. The Result Of Law Violate Is Imperfection, Wrong, Positive Pain.

Few Persons Can Be Made To Believe That It Is Not Quite An Easy Thing To Invent A Method Of Secret Writing That Shall Baffle Investigation. Yet It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

Thy Soul Shall Find Itself Alone ’mid Dark Thoughts Of The Gray Tombstone— Not One, Of All The Crowd, To Pry Into Thine Hour Of Secrecy. Be Silent In That Solitude, Which Is Not Loneliness—for Then The Spirits Of The Dead Who Stood In Life Before Thee Are Again In Death Around Thee—and Their Will Shall Overshadow Thee: Be Still. [...]

I Hold That A Long Poem Does Not Exist. I Maintain That The Phrase, "a Long Poem," Is Simply A Flat Contradiction In Terms.

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee

The Greater Amount Of Truth Is Impulsively Uttered; Thus The Greater Amount Is Spoken, Not Written.

It Would Be Mockery To Call Such Dreariness Heaven At All.

The Fury Of A Demon Instantly Possessed Me. I Knew Myself No Longer. My Original Soul Seemed, At Once, To Take Its Flight From My Body; And A More Than Fiendish Malevolence, Gin-nurtured, Thrilled Every Fibre Of My Frame.

The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure, Conveys It In A Borrowed Name: Euphelia Serves To Grace My Measure, But Cloe Is My Real Flame. My Softest Verse, My Darling Lyre Upon Euphelia's Toilet Lay - When Cloe Noted Her Desire That I Should Sing, That I Should Play. My Lyre I Tune, My Voice I Raise, But With My Numbers Mix My Sighs; And Whilst I Sing Euphelia's Praise, I Fix My Soul On Cloe's Eyes. Fair Cloe Blushed; Euphelia Frowned: I Sung, And Gazed; I Played, And Trembled: And Venus To The Loves Around Remarked How Ill We All Dissembled.

It Was Many And Many A Year Ago, In A Kingdom By The Sea, That A Maiden There Lived Whom You May Know By The Name Of Annabel Lee;-- And This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

I Became Insane, With Long Intervals Of Horrible Sanity.

Me Volví Loco, Con Largos Intervalos De Horrible Cordura.

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting...

Imperceptibly The Love Of These Discords Grew Upon Me As My Love Of Music Grew Stronger.

My Next Thought Concerned The Choice Of An Impression, Or Effect, To Be Conveyed: And Here I May As Well Observe That, Throughout The Construction, I Kept Steadily In View The Design.

It Is The Nature Of Truth In General, As Of Some Ores In Particular, To Be Richest When Most Superficial.

The Bostonians Are Really, As A Race, Far Inferior In Point Of Anything Beyond Mere Intellect To Any Other Set Upon The Continent Of North America. They Are Decidedly The Most Servile Imitators Of The English It Is Possible To Conceive.

Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.

There Are Some Qualities, Some Incorporate Things, That Have A Double Life, Which Thus Is Made. A Type Os Twin Entity Which Springs From Matter And Light, Envinced In Solid And Shade.

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

[the Daguerreotype] Itself Must Undoubtedly Be Regarded As The Most Important, And Perhaps The Most Extraordinary Triumph Of Modern Science.

The Death Of A Beautiful Woman, Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World.

Always Keep A Big Bottle Of Booze At Your Side. If A Bird Starts Talking Nonsense To You In The Middle Of The Night Pour Yourself A Stiff Drink.

I Was A Child And She Was A Child, In This Kingdom By The Sea; But We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love- I And My Annabel Lee; With A Love That The Winged Seraphs Of Heaven Coveted Her And Me.

The Mere Imitation, However Accurate, Of What Is In Nature, Entitles No Man To The Sacred Name Of Artist

Fill With Mingled Cream And Amber, I Will Drain That Glass Again. Such Hilarious Visions Clamber Through The Chamber Of My Brain — Quaintest Thoughts — Queerest Fancies Come To Life And Fade Away; What Care I How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

It Is With Literature As With Law Or Empire - An Established Name Is An Estate In Tenure, Or A Throne In Possession.

Music, When Combined With A Pleasurable Idea, Is Poetry; Music, Without The Idea, Is Simply Music; The Idea, Without The Music, Is Prose, From Its Very Definitiveness.

The Ninety And Nine Are With Dreams, Content But The Hope Of The World Made New, Is The Hundredth Man Who Is Grimly Bent On Making Those Dreams Come True.

In Reading Some Books We Occupy Ourselves Chiefly With The Thoughts Of The Author; In Perusing Others, Exclusively With Our Own.

Sometimes I’m Terrified Of My Heart; Of Its Constant Hunger For Whatever It Is It Wants. The Way It Stops And Starts.

The Realities Of The World Affected Me As Visions, And As Visions Only, While The Wild Ideas Of The Land Of Dreams Became, In Turn,—not The Material Of My Every-day Existence--but In Very Deed That Existence Utterly And Solely In Itself.

If You Have Never Been At Sea In A Heavy Gale, You Can Form No Idea Of The Confusion Of Mind Occasioned By Wind And Spry Together. They Blind, Deafen, And Strangle You, And Take Away All Power Of Action Or Reflection.

In The Deepest Slumber-no! In Delirium-no! In A Swoon-no! In Death-no! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost.

Take Thy Beak From Out My Heart, And Take Thy Form From Off My Door!” Quoth The Raven, “nevermore.

And So Faintly You Came Tapping, Tapping At My Chamber Door, That I Scarce Was Sure I Heard You"— Here I Opened Wide The Door; — Darkness There, And Nothing More.

Yet We Met; And Fate Bound Us Together At The Alter,and I Never Spoke Of Passion Nor Thought Of Love. She, However Shunned Society, And, Attaching Herself To Me Alone Rendered Me Happy. It Is A Happiness To Wonder; It Is A Happiness To Dream.

Dreams Are The Eraser Dust I Blow Off My Page. They Fade Into The Emptiness, Another Dark Gray Day. Dreams Are Only Memories Of The Plans I Had Back Then. Dreams Are Eraser Dust And Now I Use A Pen.

We Gave The Future To The Winds, And Slumbered Tranquilly In The Present, Weaving The Dull World Around Us Into Dreams.

Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries

That Is Another Of Your Odd Notions," Said The Prefect, Who Had A Fashion Of Calling Every Thing "odd" That Was Beyond His Comprehension, And Thus Lived Amid An Absolute Legion Of "oddities.

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