honu

Edgar Allan Poe (1847)


The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispd and sere
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere
Our memories were treacherous and sere
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here)
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn
As the star-dials hinted of morn
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn
Astartes bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies
To the Lethean peace of the skies
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes
Come up through the lair of the Lion
With Love in her luminous eyes.

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said Sadly this star I mistrust
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! let us fly! for we must.
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night:
See! it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom
And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
And were stopped by the door of a tomb;
By the door of a legended tomb:
And I said What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?
She replied Ulalume Ulalume
Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crispd and sere
As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed I journeyed down here
That I brought a dread burden down here
On this night of all nights in the year,
Oh, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber
This misty mid region of Weir
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Said we, then the two, then Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds
From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?