Thou wouldst be loved?—then let thy heartFrom its present pathway part not:Being everything which now thou art,Be nothing which thou art not.So with the world thy gentle ways, 5Thy grace, thy more than beauty,Shall be an endless theme of praise,And love—a simple duty.
Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowersThy gentlest of all gentle names dost take,How many memories of what radiant hoursAt sight of thee and thine at once awake!How many scenes of what departed bliss, 5How many thoughts of what entombéd hopes,How many visions of a maiden that isNo more—no more upon thy verdant slopes!No more!alas, that magical sad soundTransforming all! Thy charms shall please no more, 10Thy memory no more. Accurséd ground!Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
The ring is on my hand,And the wreath is on my brow;Satins and jewels grandAre all at my command,And I am happy now. 5
And my lord he loves me well;But, when first he breathed his vow,I felt my bosom swell,For the words rang as a knell,And the voice seemed his who fell 10In the battle down the dell,And who is happy now.
But he spoke to reassure me,And he kissed my pallid brow,While a reverie came o'er me, 15And to the church-yard bore me,And I sighed to him before me,Thinking him dead D'Elormie,"Oh, I am happy now!"
And thus the words were spoken, 20And this the plighted vow;And though my faith be broken,And though my heart be broken,Here is a ring, as tokenThat I am happy now! 25
Would God I could awaken!For I dream I know not how,And my soul is sorely shakenLest an evil step be taken,Lest the dead who is forsaken 30May not be happy now.
There are some qualities, some incorporate things,That have a double life, which thus is madeA type of that twin entity which springsFrom matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.There is a twofold Silence—sea and shore, 5Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,Some human memories and tearful lore,Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."He is the corporate Silence: dread him not: 10No power hath he of evil in himself;But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,That haunteth the lone regions where hath trodNo foot of man), commend thyself to God! 15
Lo! 't is a gala nightWithin the lonesome latter years.An angel throng, bewinged, bedightIn veils, and drowned in tears,Sit in a theatre to see 5A play of hopes and fears,While the orchestra breathes fitfullyThe music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,Mutter and mumble low, 10
And hither and thither fly;Mere puppets they, who come and goAt bidding of vast formless thingsThat shift the scenery to and fro,Flapping from out their condor wings 15Invisible Woe.
That motley drama—oh, be sureIt shall not be forgot!With its Phantom chased for evermoreBy a crowd that seize it not, 20Through a circle that ever returneth inTo the self-same spot;And much of Madness, and more of Sin,And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see amid the mimic rout 25A crawling shape, intrude:A blood-red thing that writhes from outThe scenic solitude!It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangsThe mimes become its food, 30And seraphs sob at vermin fangsIn human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!And over each quivering formThe curtain, a funeral pall, 35Comes down with the rush of a storm,While the angels, all pallid and wan,Uprising, unveiling, affirmThat the play is the tragedy, "Man,"And its hero, the Conqueror Worm. 40
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 5From an ultimate dim Thule:From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,Out of Space—out of Time.Bottomless vales and boundless floods,And chasms and caves and Titan woods, 10With forms that no man can discoverFor the tears that drip all over;Mountains toppling evermoreInto seas without a shore;Seas that restlessly aspire, 15Surging, unto skies of fire;Lakes that endlessly outspreadTheir lone waters, lone and dead,—Their still waters, still and chillyWith the snows of the lolling lily. 20
By the lakes that thus outspreadTheir lone waters, lone and dead,—Their sad waters, sad and chillyWith the snows of the lolling lily;By the mountains—near the river 25Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever;By the gray woods, by the swampWhere the toad and the newt encamp;By the dismal tarns and poolsWhere dwell the Ghouls; 30By each spot the most unholy,In each nook most melancholy,—There the traveller meets aghastSheeted Memories of the Past:Shrouded forms that start and sigh 35As they pass the wanderer by,White-robed forms of friends long given,In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion'T is a peaceful, soothing region; 40For the spirit that walks in shadow'T is—oh, 't is an Eldorado!But the traveller, travelling through it,May not—dare not openly view it;Never its mysteries are exposed 45To the weak human eye unclosed;So wills its King, who hath forbidThe uplifting of the fringéd lid;And thus the sad Soul that here passesBeholds it but through darkened glasses. 50By a route obscure and lonely,Haunted by ill angels only,Where an Eidolon, named Night,On a black throne reigns upright,I have wandered home but newly 55From this ultimate dim Thule.
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 of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door: 5Only this and nothing more."
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 borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore, 10For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore:Nameless here forevermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtainThrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 15"'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door:This it is and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; 20But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,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.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 25Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore:"Merely this and nothing more. 30
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before."Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore;Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore: 35'T is the wind and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, 40Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door:Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smilingBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,—"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45Ghastly 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."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; 50For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,With such name as "Nevermore."
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 55That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered,Till I scarcely more than muttered,—"Other friends have flown before;On the morrowhewill leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."Then the bird said, "Nevermore." 60
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful DisasterFollowed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 65Of 'Never—nevermore.'"
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linkingFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, 70What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yoreMeant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 75On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'erSheshall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censerSwung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. 80"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent theeRespite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil! 85Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore:Is there—isthere balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 90
"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." 95Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting:"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! 100Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 105And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted—nevermore.
I dwelt aloneIn a world of moan,And my soul was a stagnant tide,Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride,Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride. 5
Ah, less—less brightThe stars of the nightThan the eyes of the radiant girl!And never a flakeThat the vapor can make 10With the moon-tints of purple and pearlCan vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl,Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless curl.
Now doubt—now painCome never again, 15For her soul gives me sigh for sigh;And all day longShines, bright and strong,Astarte within the sky,While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye, 20While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning;Of all to whom thine absence is the night,The blotting utterly from out high heavenThe sacred sun; of all who, weeping, bless theeHourly for hope, for life, ah! above all, 5For the resurrection of deep-buried faithIn truth, in virtue, in humanity;Of all who, on despair's unhallowed bedLying down to die, have suddenly arisenAt thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!" 10At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilledIn the seraphic glancing of thine eyes;Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitudeNearest resembles worship, oh, rememberThe truest, the most fervently devoted, 15And think that these weak lines are written by him:By him, who, as he pens them, thrills to thinkHis spirit is communing with an angel's.
The skies they were ashen and sober;The leaves they were crispéd and sere,The leaves they were withering and sere;It was night in the lonesome OctoberOf my most immemorial year; 5It 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 10Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.These were days when my heart was volcanicAs the scoriac rivers that roll,As the lavas that restlessly roll 15Their sulphurous currents down YaanekIn the ultimate climes of the pole,That groan as they roll down Mount YaanekIn the realms of the boreal pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober, 20But 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!) 25We noted not the dim lake of Auber(Though once we had journeyed down here),Remembered not the dank tarn of AuberNor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent 30And star-dials pointed to morn,As the star-dials hinted of morn,At the end of our path a liquescentAnd nebulous lustre was born,Out of which a miraculous crescent 35Arose with a duplicate horn,Astarte's bediamonded crescentDistinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said—"She is warmer than Dian:She rolls through an ether of sighs, 40She revels in a region of sighs:She has seen that the tears are not dry onThese cheeks, where the worm never dies,And has come past the stars of the LionTo point us the path to the skies, 45To 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." 50
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." 55In terror she spoke, letting sink herWings until they trailed in the dust;In agony sobbed, letting sink herPlumes till they trailed in the dust,Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 60
I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming:Let us on by this tremulous light!Let us bathe in this crystalline light!Its sibyllic splendor is beamingWith hope and in beauty to-night: 65See, 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 gleamingThat cannot but guide us aright, 70Since 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, 75But 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— 80'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
Then my heart it grew ashen and soberAs the leaves that were crisped and sere,As the leaves that were withering and sere,And I cried—"It was surely October 85On this very night of last yearThat I journeyed—I journeyed down here,That I brought a dread burden down here:On this night of all nights in the year,Ah, what demon has tempted me here? 90Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber,This misty mid region of Weir:Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
Not long ago the writer of these lines,In the mad pride of intellectuality,Maintained "the power of words"—denied that everA thought arose within the human brainBeyond the utterance of the human tongue: 5And now, as if in mockery of that boast,Two words, two foreign soft dissyllables,Italian tones, made only to be murmuredBy angels dreaming in the moonlit "dewThat hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill," 10Have stirred from out the abysses of his heartUnthought-like thoughts, that are the souls of thought,—Richer, far wilder, far diviner visionsThan even the seraph harper, Israfel(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures"), 15Could hope to utter. And I—my spells are broken;The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand;With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee,I cannot write—I cannot speak or think—Alas, I cannot feel; for't is not feeling,— 20This standing motionless upon the goldenThreshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,Gazing entranced adown the gorgeous vista,And thrilling as I see, upon the right,Upon the left, and all the way along, 25Amid empurpled vapors, far awayTo where the prospect terminates—thee only.
"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.Through all the flimsy things we see at onceAs easily as through a Naples bonnet—Trash of all trash! how can a lady don it? 5Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff,Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puffTwirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."And, veritably, Sol is right enough.The general tuckermanities are arrant 10Bubbles, ephemeral andsotransparent;Butthisis, now, you may depend upon it,Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dintOf the dear names that lie concealed within 't.
I saw thee once—once only—years ago:I must not say how many—but not many.It was a July midnight; and from outA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaringSought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, 5There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,With quietude and sultriness and slumber,Upon the upturned faces of a thousandRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe: 10Fell on the upturned faces of these rosesThat gave out, in return for the love-light,Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death:Fell on the upturned faces of these rosesThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted 15By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bankI saw thee half reclining; while the moonFell on the upturned faces of the roses,And on thine own, upturned—alas, in sorrow! 20
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)That bade me pause before that garden-gateTo breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, 25Save only thee and me—O Heaven! O God!How my heart beats in coupling those two words!—Save only thee and me. I paused, I looked,And in an instant all things disappeared.(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) 30The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,The happy flowers and the repining trees,Were seen no more: the very roses' odorsDied in the arms of the adoring airs. 35All, all expired save thee—save less than thou:Save only the divine light in thine eyes,Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes:I saw but them—they were the world to me:I saw but them, saw only them for hours, 40Saw only them until the moon went down.What wild heart-histories seem to lie enwrittenUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres;How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope;How silently serene a sea of pride; 45How daring an ambition; yet how deep,How fathomless a capacity for love!
But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees 50Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained:They would not go—they never yet have gone;Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;They follow me—they lead me through the years; 55They are my ministers—yet I their slave;Their office is to illumine and enkindle—My duty, to be saved by their bright light,And purified in their electric fire,And sanctified in their elysian fire, 60They fill my soul with beauty (which is hope),And are, far up in heaven, the stars I kneel toIn the sad, silent watches of my night;While even in the meridian glare of dayI see them still—two sweetly scintillant 65Venuses, unextinguished by the sun.
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling liesUpon the page, enwrapped from every reader.Search narrowly the lines! they hold a treasure 5Divine, a talisman, an amuletThat must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—The word—the syllables. Do not forgetThe trivialest point, or you may lose your labor:And yet there is in this no Gordian knot 10Which one might not undo without a sabre,If one could merely comprehend the plot.Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peeringEyes scintillating soul, there lieperdusThree eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing 15Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet's, too.Its letters, although naturally lyingLike the knight Pinto, Mendez Ferdinando,Still form a synonym for Truth.—Cease trying!You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do. 20
Thank Heaven! the crisis,The danger, is past,And the lingering illnessIs over at last,And the fever called "Living" 5Is conquered at last.
Sadly I knowI am shorn of my strength,And no muscle I moveAs I lie at full length: 10But no matter!—I feelI am better at length.
And I rest so composedlyNow, in my bed,That any beholder 15Might fancy me dead,Might start at beholding me,Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,The sighing and sobbing, 20Are quieted now,With that horrible throbbingAt heart:—ah, that horrible,Horrible throbbing!
The sickness, the nausea, 25The pitiless pain,Have ceased, with the feverThat maddened my brain,With the fever called "Living"That burned in my brain. 30
And oh! of all tortures,That torture the worstHas abated—the terribleTorture of thirstFor the naphthaline river 35Of Passion accurst:I have drank of a waterThat quenches all thirst:
Of a water that flows,With a lullaby sound, 40From a spring but a very fewFeet under ground,From a cavern not very farDown under ground.
And ah! let it never 45Be foolishly saidThat my room it is gloomy,And narrow my bed;For man never sleptIn a different bed: 50And,to sleep, you must slumberIn just such a bed.
My tantalized spiritHere blandly reposes,Forgetting, or never 55Regretting, its roses:Its old agitationsOf myrtles and roses;
For now, while so quietlyLying, it fancies 60A holier odorAbout it, of pansies:A rosemary odor,Commingled with pansies,With rue and the beautiful 65Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,Bathing in manyA dream of the truthAnd the beauty of Annie, 70Drowned in a bathOf the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,She fondly caressed,And then I fell gently 75To sleep on her breast,Deeply to sleepFrom the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,She covered me warm, 80And she prayed to the angelsTo keep me from harm,To the queen of the angelsTo shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly 85Now, in my bed,(Knowing her love)That you fancy me dead;And I rest so contentedlyNow, in my bed, 90(With her love at my breast)That you fancy me dead,That you shudder to look at me,Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter 95Than all of the manyStars in the sky,For it sparkles with Annie:It glows with the lightOf the love of my Annie, 100With the thought of the lightOf the eyes of my Annie.
Hear the sledges with the bells,Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night! 5While the stars, that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline deligit;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme, 10To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells, 15Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes, 20And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cells, 25What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells!How it dwellsOn the Future! how it tellsOf the rapture that impels 30To the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 35
Hear the loud alarum bells,Brazen bells!What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright! 40Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of tune,In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 45Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavorNow—now to sit or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon. 50Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf Despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpour 55On the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear it fully knows,By the twangingAnd the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows; 60Yet the ear distinctly tells,In the janglingAnd the wrangling,How the danger sinks and swells,—By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, 65Of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bells, 70Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the nightHow we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone! 75For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people—ah, the people,They that dwell up in the steeple, 80All alone,And who tolling, tolling, tollingIn that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stone— 85They are neither man nor woman,They are neither brute nor human,They are Ghouls:And their king it is who tolls;And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 90RollsA pæan from the bells;And his merry bosom swellsWith the pæan of the bells,And he dances, and he yells: 95Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the pæan of the bells,Of the bells:Keeping time, time, time, 100In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the throbbing of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells—To the sobbing of the bells;Keeping time, time, time, 105As he knells, knells, knells,In a happy Runic rhyme,To the rolling of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells:To the tolling of the bells, 110Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thought 5Than to love and be loved by me.
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; 10With a love that the winged seraphs of heavenCoveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 15My beautiful Annabel Lee;So that her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea. 20
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,Went envying her and me;Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea)That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 25Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we,Of many far wiser than we;And neither the angels in heaven above, 30Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee; 35And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,In her sepulchre there by the sea, 40In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,The angels, whispering to one another,Can find among their burning terms of love—None so devotional as that of "Mother,"Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— 5You who are more than mother unto me,And fill my heart of hearts where Death installed youIn setting my Virginia's spirit free.My mother, my own mother, who died early,Was but the mother of myself; but you 10Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,And thus are dearer than the mother I knewBy that infinity with which my wifeWas dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
Gayly bedight,A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow,Had journeyed long,Singing a song, 5In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old,This knight so bold,And o'er his heart a shadowFell as he found 10No spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow: 15"Shadow," said he,"Where can it be,This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the MountainsOf the Moon, 20Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,"The shade replied,"If you seek for Eldorado!"
Son coeur est un luth suspendu;Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.Béranger
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. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium: the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. 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. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, therearecombinations 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; and acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which in its wildly inportunate nature had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it was the apparentheartthat went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.
Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested of late in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth at no period any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other—it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire to son of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher"—an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment, that of looking down within the tarn, had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition—for why should I not so term it?—served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy—a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity: an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn: a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit whatmusthave been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded one of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of theennuyéman of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten.
And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence, an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance—which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. "I shall perish," said he, "Imustperish 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 learned moreover at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and long-continued illness, indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution, of a tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread, and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly because I shuddered knowing not why;—from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least, in the circumstances then surrounding me, there arose, out of the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But the fervidfacilityof his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness, on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:—
In the greenest of our valleysBy good angels tenanted,Once a fair and stately palace—Radiant palace—reared its head.In the monarch Thought's dominion,It stood there;Never seraph spread a pinionOver fabric half so fair.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,On its roof did float and flow,(This—all this—was in the oldenTime long ago)And every gentle air that dallied,In that sweet day,Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,A wingéd odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valleyThrough two luminous windows sawSpirits moving musicallyTo a lute's well-tunéd law,Round about a throne where, sitting,Porphyrogene,In state his glory well befitting,The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowingWas the fair palace door,Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,And sparkling evermore,A troop of Echoes whose sweet dutyWas but to sing,In voices of surpassing beauty,The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,Assailed the monarch's high estate;(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrowShall dawn upon him, desolate!)And round about his home the gloryThat blushed and bloomedIs but a dim-remembered storyOf the old time entombed.
And travellers now within that valleyThrough the red-litten windows seeVast forms that move fantasticallyTo a discordant melody;While, like a ghastly rapid river,Through the pale doorA hideous throng rush out forever,And laugh—but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a train of thought, wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for other men[1] haye thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But in his disordered fancy the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnestabandonof his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his fore-fathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones—in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around—above all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence—the evidence of the sentience—was to be seen, he said (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which madehimwhat I now saw him—what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
[Footnote 1: Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially theBishop of Landaff.—See "Chemical Essays," Vol. V.]
Our books—the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid—were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt and Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small octavo edition of theDirectorium Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and Ægipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten church—theVigilice Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and in later days as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead—for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattered draperies which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and at length there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened—I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me—to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste, (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night,) and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped with a gentle touch at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.