Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
 
Allan Poe

A Dream

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?




Edgar Allan Poe