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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.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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It Was Many And

Edgar Allan Poe

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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.

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There Is Then No Analogy Whatever Between The Operations Of The Chess-player, And Those Of The Calculating Machine Of Mr. Babbage , And If We Choose To Call The Former A Pure Machine We Must Be Prepared To Admit That It Is, Beyond All Comparison, The Most Wonderful Of The Inventions Of Mankind.

If You Wish To Forget Anything On The Spot, Make A Note That This Thing Is To Be Remembered.

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!

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.

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

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.

A Poem Deserves Its Title Only Inasmuch As It Excites, By Elevating The Soul.

If We Examine A Work Of Ordinary Art, By Means Of A Powerful Microscope, All Traces Of Resemblance To Nature Will Disappear - But The Closest Scrutiny Of The Photogenic Drawing Discloses Only A More Absolute Truth, A More Perfect Identity Of Aspect With The Thing Represented.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

...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.

There Is Not A More Disgusting Spectacle Under The Sun Than Our Subserviency To British Criticism. It Is Disgusting, First, Because It Is Truckling, Servile, Pusillanimous--secondly, Because Of Its Gross Irrationality. We Know The British To Bear Us Little But Ill Will--we Know That, In No Case Do They Utter Unbiased Opinions Of American Books . . . We Know All This, And Yet, Day After Day, Submit Our Necks To The Degrading Yoke Of The Crudest Opinion That Emanates From The Fatherland.

I Never Can Hear A Crowd Of People Singing And Gesticulating, All Together, At An Italian Opera, Without Fancying Myself At Athens, Listening To That Particular Tragedy, By Sophocles, In Which He Introduces A Full Chorus Of Turkeys, Who Set About Bewailing The Death Of Meleager.

As A Viewed Myself In A Fragment Of Looking-glass..., I Was So Impressed With A Sense Of Vague Awe At My Appearance ... That I Was Seized With A Violent Tremour.

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.

Me Volví Loco, Con Largos Intervalos De Horrible Cordura.

The Romans Worshipped Their Standard; And The Roman Standard Happened To Be An Eagle. Our Standard Is Only One Tenth Of An Eagle,--a Dollar, But We Make All Even By Adoring It With Tenfold Devotion.

To Speak Algebraically, Mr. M. Is Execrable, But Mr. G. Is (x + 1)- Ecrable.

I Was Never Kinder To The Old Man Than During The Whole Week Before I Killed Him.

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.

O, Times! O, Manners! It Is My Opinion That You Are Changing Sadly Your Dominion I Mean The Reign Of Manners Hath Long Ceased, For Men Have None At All, Or Bad At Least; And As For Times, Altho' 'tis Said By Many The "good Old Times" Were Far The Worst Of Any, Of Which Sound Doctrine I Believe Each Tittle Yet Still I Think These Worst A Little. I've Been A Thinking -isn't That The Phrase?- I Like Your Yankee Words And Yankee Ways - I've Been A Thinking, Whether It Were Best To Take Things Seriously, Or All In Jest

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!

As An Individual, I Myself Feel Impelled To Fancy ... A Limitless Succession Of Universes.... Each Exists, Apart And Independently, In The Bosom Of Its Proper And Particular God.

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

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.

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.

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.

The Analytical Power Should Not Be Confounded With Simple Ingenuity; For While The Analyst Is Necessarily Ingenious, The Ingenious Man Is Often Remarkably Incapable Of Analysis.

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

And I Fell Violently On My Face.

All Works Of Art Should Begin... At The End.

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

To Him, Who Still Would Gaze Upon The Glory Of The Summer Sun, There Comes, When That Sun Will From Him Part, A Sullen Hopelessness Of Heart.

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

I Have No Faith In Human Perfectability. I Think That Human Exertion Will Have No Appreciable Effect Upon Humanity. Man Is Now Only More Active - Not More Happy - Nor More Wise, Than He Was 6000 Years Ago.

If I Venture To Displace ... The Microscopical Speck Of Dust... On The Point Of My Finger,... I Have Done A Deed Which Shakes The Moon In Her Path, Which Causes The Sun To Be No Longer The Sun, And Which Alters Forever The Destiny Of Multitudinous Myriads Of Stars.

The People Have Nothing To Do With The Laws But To Obey Them.

There Are Few Persons, Even Among The Calmest Thinkers, Who Have Not Occasionally Been Startled Into A Vague Yet Thrilling Half Credence In The Supernatural, By Coincidences Of So Seemingly Marvellous A Character That, As Mere Coincidences, The Intellect Has Been Unable To Receive Them.

I Have No Words Alas! To Tell The Loveliness Of Loving Well

A Gentleman With A Pug Nose Is A Contradiction In Terms.

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.

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

And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.

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.

Never To Suffer Would Have Been Never To Have Been Blessed.

There Are Moments When, Even To The Sober Eye Of Reason, The World Of Our Sad Humanity Must Assume The Aspect Of Hell.

Ah, Distinctly I Remember It Was In The Bleak December; And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor. Eagerly, I Wished The Morrow; - Vainly I Had Sought To Borrow From My Books Surcease Of Sorrow - Sorrow For The Lost Leonore - For The Rare And Radiant Maiden Who The Angels Name Lenore - Nameless Here For Evermore.

I Have Great Faith In Fools,— Self-confidence My Friends Will Call It.

I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect - In Terror.

Who Cares How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

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.

Reality Is The #1 Cause Of Insanity Among Those Who Are In Contact With It

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

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.

I Have Been Happy, Though In A Dream. I Have Been Happy-and I Love The Theme: Dreams! In Their Vivid Colouring Of Life As In That Fleeting, Shadowy, Misty Strife

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.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

All Suffering Originates From Craving, From Attachment, From Desire.

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

The Thousand Injuries Of Fortunato I Had Borne As I Best Could, But When He Ventured Upon Insult I Vowed Revenge. You, Who So Well Know The Nature Of My Soul, Will Not Suppose, However, That Gave Utterance To A Threat. At Length I Would Be Avenged; This Was A Point Definitely, Settled --but The Very Definitiveness With Which It Was Resolved Precluded The Idea Of Risk. I Must Not Only Punish But Punish With Impunity. 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.

To Vilify A Great Man Is The Readiest Way In Which A Little Man Can Himself Attain Greatness.

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.

We Allude To The Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal

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.

Every Poem Should Remind The Reader That They Are Going To Die.

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

As A Poet And As A Mathematician, He Would Reason Well; As A Mere Mathematician, He Could Not Have Reasoned At All.

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

It Is The Curse Of A Certain Order Of Mind, That It Can Never Rest Satisfied With The Consciousness Of Its Ability To Do A Thing.still Less Is It Content With Doing It. It Must Both Know And Show How It Was Done.

I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves But In Their Results.

A Lie Travels Round The World While Truth Is Putting Her Boots On.

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

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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

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

No Pictorial Or Sculptural Combinations Of Points Of Human Loveliness, Do More Than Approach The Living And Breathing Human Beauty As It Gladdens Our Daily Path.

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.

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

By The Grey Woods, By The Swamp, Where The Toad And Newt Encamp, By The Dismal Tarns And Pools, Where Dwell The Gouls. By Each Spot The Most Unholy, By Each Nook Most Melancholy, There The Traveller Meets, Aghast, Sheeted Memories Of The Past. Shrouded Forms That Start And Sigh, As They Pass The Wanderer By. White-robed Forms Of Friends Long Given; In Agony, To The Earth - And Heaven.

The Pioneers And Missionaries Of Religion Have Been The Real Cause Of More Trouble And War Than All Other Classes Of Mankind.

If The Propositions Of This Discourse Are Tenable, The "state Of Progressive Collapse" Is Precisely That State In Which Alone We Are Warranted In Considering All Things.

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.

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.

If I Could Dwell Where Israfel Hath Dwelt And He Where I He Might Not Sing So Wildly Well A Mortal Melody While A Bolder Note Then This Might Swell From My Lyre In The Sky.

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

Yet I Am Not More Sure That My Soul Lives, Than I Am That Perverseness Is One Of The Primitive Impulses Of The Human Heartone Of The Indivisible Primary Faculties, Or Sentiments, Which Give Direction To The Character Of Man.

I Could Have Clasped The Red Walls To My Bosom As A Garment Of Eternal Peace. "death," I Said, "any Death But That Of The Pit!" Fool! Might I Have Not Known That Into The Pit It Was The Object Of The Burning Iron To Urge Me?

By Late Accounts From Rotterdam, That City Seems To Be In A High State Of Philosophical Excitement. Indeed, Phenomena Have There Occurred Of A Nature So Completely Unexpected--so Entirely Novel--so Utterly At Variance With Preconceived Opinions--as To Leave No Doubt On My Mind That Long Ere This All Europe Is In An Uproar, All Physics In A Ferment, All Reason And Astronomy Together By The Ears.

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

Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There, Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared To Dream Before.

The Unity Of Effect Or Impression Is A Point Of The Greatest Importance. It Is Clear, Moreover, That This Unity Cannot Be Thoroughly Preserved In Productions Whose Perusal Cannot Be Completed At One Sitting.

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.

Man Is An Animal That Diddles, And There Is No Animal That Diddles But Man.

Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.

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!

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

In Death - No! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost. Else There Is No Immortality For Man. Arousing From The Most Profound Slumbers, We Break The Gossamer Web Of Some Dream. Yet In A Second Afterward, (so Frail May That Web Have Been) We Remember Not That We Have Dreamed.

Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.

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.

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.

There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told. Men Die Nightly In Their Beds, Wringing The Hands Of Ghostly Confessors, And Looking Them Piteously In The Eyes - Die With Despair Of Heart And Convulsion Of Throat, On Account Of The Hideousness Of Mysteries Which Will Not Suffer Themselves To Be Revealed. Now And Then, Alas, The Conscience Of Man Takes Up A Burden So Heavy In Horror That It Can Be Thrown Down Only Into The Grave. And Thus The Essence Of All Crime Is Undivulged.

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.

Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.

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.

Experience Has Shown, And A True Philosophy Will Always Show, That A Vast, Perhaps The Larger Portion Of The Truth Arises From The Seemingly Irrelevant.

To Helen Helen, Thy Beauty Is To Me Like Those Nicean Barks Of Yore That Gently, O'er A Perfumed Sea, The Weary, Way-worn Wanderer Bore To His Own Native Shore. On Desperate Seas Long Wont To Roam, Thy Hyacinth Hair, Thy Classic Face, Thy Naiad Airs Have Brought Me Home To The Glory That Was Greece, And The Grandeur That Was Rome. Lo, In Yon Brilliant Window-niche How Statue-like I See Thee Stand, The Agate Lamp Within Thy Hand, Ah! Psyche, From The Regions Which Are Holy Land!

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

To Elevate The Soul, Poetry Is Necessary.

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.

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.

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.

Hear The Mellow Wedding Bells, Golden Bells! What A World Of Happiness Their Harmony Foretells Through The Balmy Air Of Night How They Ring Out Their Delight! From The Molten Golden Notes, And All In Tune What A Liquid Ditty Floats To The Turtle-dove That Listens While She Gloats On The Moon!

There Was An Iciness, A Sinking, A Sickening Of The Heart - An Unredeemed Dreariness Of Thought Which No Goading Of The Imagination Could Torture Into Aught Of The Sublime

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

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

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?

Beauty Of Whatever Kind, In Its Supreme Development, Invariably Excites The Sensitive Soul To Tears.

But Our Love Was Stronger By Far Than The Love Of Those Who Were Older Than We Of Many Far Wiser Than We And Neither The Angels In Heaven Above, Nor The Demons Down Under The Sea, Can Ever Dissever My Soul From The Soul Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee.

To Observe Attentively Is To Remember Distinctly.

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

I Was Forced To Fall Back Upon The Unsatisfactory Conclusion, That While, Beyond Doubt, There Are Combinations Of Very Simple Natural Objects Which Have The Power Of Thus Affecting Us, Still The Analysis Of This Power Lies Among Considerations Beyond Our Depth. It Was Possible, I Reflected, That A Mere Different Arrangement Of The Particulars Of The Scene, Of The Details Of The Picture, Would Be Sufficient To Modify, Or Perhaps To Annihilate Its Capacity For Sorrowful Impression.

Words Have No Power To Impress The Mind Without The Exquisite Horror Of Their Reality.

All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.

I Have Absolutely No Pleasure In The Stimulants In Which I Sometimes So Madly Indulge. It Has Not Been In The Pursuit Of Pleasure That I Have Periled Life And Reputation And Reason. It Has Been The Desperate Attempt To Escape From Torturing Memories, From A Sense Of Insupportable Loneliness And A Dread Of Some Strange Impending Doom.

[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.

The Word "verse" Is Used Here As The Term Most Convenient For Expressing, And Without Pedantry, All That Is Involved In The Consideration Of Rhythm, Rhyme, Meter, And Versification... The Subject Is Exceedingly Simple; One Tenth Of It, Possibly May Be Called Ethical; Nine Tenths, However, Appertains To The Mathematics.

Even With The Utterly Lost, To Whom Life And Death Are Equally Jests, There Are Matters Of Which No Jest Can Be Made.

The Rudiment Of Verse May, Possibly, Be Found In The Spondee.

Alas! For That Accursed Time They Bore Thee O'er The Billow, From Love To Titled Age And Crime, And An Unholy Pillow! From Me, And From Our Misty Clime, Where Weeps The Silver Willow!

I Heed Not That My Earthly Lot Hath - Little Of Earth In It - That Years Of Love Have Been Forgot In The Hatred Of A Minute: - I Mourn Not That The Desolate Are Happier, Sweet, Than I, But That You Sorrow For My Fate Who Am A Passer By.

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.

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

As The Strong Man Exults In His Physical Ability, Delighting In Such Exercises As Call His Muscles Into Action, So Glories The Analyst In That Moral Activity Which Disentangles.

Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows Follow Sweet Children I'll Show Thee The Way Through All The Pain And The Sorrows Weep Not Poor Childlen For Life Is This Way Murdering Beauty And Passions Hush Now Dear Children It Must Be This Way To Weary Of Life And Deceptions Rest Now My Children For Soon We'll Away Into The Calm And The Quiet Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows

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

To See Distinctly The Machinery--the Wheels And Pinions--of Any Work Of Art Is, Unquestionably, Of Itself, A Pleasure, But One Which We Are Able To Enjoy Only Just In Proportion As We Do Not Enjoy The Legitimate Effect Designed By The Artist.

If We Cannot Comprehend God In His Visible Works, How Then In His Inconceivable Thoughts, That Call The Works Into Being?

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.

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.

That Pleasure Which Is At Once The Most Pure, The Most Elevating And The Most Intense, Is Derived, I Maintain, From The Contemplation Of The Beautiful.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered, Weak And Weary, Over Many A Quaint And Curious Volume Of Forgotten Lore--while I Nodded, Nearly Napping, Suddenly There Came A Tapping, As If Some One Gently Rapping, Rapping At My Chamber Door. "'tis Some Visitor," I Muttered, "tapping At My Chamber Door--only This And Nothing More.

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

In Me Didst Thou Exist-and, In My Death, See By This Image, Which Is Thine Own, How Utterly Thou Hast Murdered Thyself.

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

Out- Out Are The Lights- Out All! And, Over Each Quivering Form, The Curtain, A Funeral Pall, Comes Down With The Rush Of A Storm, While The Angels, All Pallid And Wan, Uprising, Unveiling, Affirm That The Play Is The Tragedy, "man," And Its Hero The Conqueror Worm.

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!

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.

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

I Was Never Really Insane Except Upon Occasions When My Heart Was Touched.

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 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.

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

Happiness Is Not To Be Found In Knowledge, But In The Acquisition Of Knowledge

Of Puns It Has Been Said That Those Who Most Dislike Them Are Those Who Are Least Able To Utter Them.

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

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.

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

Prophet!" Said I, "thing Of Evil! - Prophet Still, If Bird Or Devil! By That Heaven That Bends Above Us- By That God We Both Adore- Tell This Soul With Sorrow Laden If, Within The Distant Aidenn, It Shall Clasp A Sainted Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore- Clasp A Rare And Radiant Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore." Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

And So, Being Young And Dipt In Folly, I Fell In Love With Melancholy.

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

I Might Refer At Once, If Necessary, To A Hundred Well Authenticated Instances. One Of Very Remarkable Character, And Of Which The Circumstances May Be Fresh In The Memory Of Some Of My Readers, Occurred, Not Very Long Ago, In The Neighboring City Of Baltimore, Where It Occasioned A Painful, Intense, And Widely Extended Excitement.

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

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.

It Is By No Means An Irrational Fancy That, In A Future Existence, We Shall Look Upon What We Think Our Present Existence, As A Dream.

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

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

In Beauty Of Face No Maiden Ever Equaled Her. It Was The Radiance Of An Opium-dream - An Airy And Spirit-lifting Vision More Wildly Divine Than The Fantasies Which Hovered About The Slumbering Souls Of The Daughters Of Delos.

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.

Now This Is The Point. You Fancy Me A Mad. Madmen Know Nothing. But You Should Have Seen Me. You Should Have Seen How Wisely I Proceeded.

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.

We Had Always Dwelled Together, Beneath A Tropical Sun, In The Valley Of The Many Colored Grass.

The Plots Of God Are Perfect. The Universe Is A Plot Of God.

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

He Must Be Theory-mad Beyond Redemption Who ... Shall ... Persist In Attempting To Reconcile The Obstinate Oils And Waters Of Poetry And Truth.

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.

Let My Heart Be Still A Moment And This Mystery Explore.

...if You Do Not Take It Up With You In Some Way, I Shall Be Under The Necessity Of Breaking Your Head With This Shovel

A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.

Literature Is The Most Noble Of Professions. In Fact, It Is About The Only One Fit For A Man.

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

There Are Certain Themes Of Which The Interest Is All-absorbing, But Which Are Too Entirely Horrible For The Purposes Of Legitimate Fiction.

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.

Yes," I Said, "for The Love Of God!

I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.

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

The Object, Truth, Or The Satisfaction Of The Intellect, And The Object, Passion, Or The Excitement Of The Heart, Are, Although Attainable, To A Certain Extent, In Poetry, Far More Readily Attainable In Prose.

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

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

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.

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