Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,

While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose mortal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone

41

Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin !
It was the dead who groaned within.

LENORE 2

60

1831.

Aн, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

2 The first and third stanzas are supposed to be spoken by the wretches,' relatives or false friends of Lenore; the second and fourth stanzas by Guy De Vere, her lover.

In this one case, perhaps, Poe's latest version is not so good as an earlier one. The form of Lenore published in 1843 is given below for comparison.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl!
The spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! A saintly soul
Glides down the Stygian river!
And let the burial rite be read-
The funeral song be sung

A dirge for the most lovely dead
That ever died so young!
And, Guy De Vere,

Hast thou no tear?

Weep now or nevermore !

See, on yon drear

And rigid bier,

Low lies thy love Lenore!

Yon heir, whose cheeks of pallid hue
With tears are streaming wet,

Sees only, through

Their crocodile dew,

A vacant coronet

False friends! ye loved her for her wealth

And hated her for her pride,

And, when she fell in feeble health,

Ye blessed her that she died.

How shall the ritual, then, be read?

The requiem how be sung

For her most wrong'd of all the dead
That ever died so young?'

With young hope at her side,

And thou art wild

For the dear child

That should have been thy bride

For her, the fair

And debonair,

That now so lowly lies

The life still there

Upon her hair,

The death upon her eyes.

Avaunt!-to-night

My heart is light

No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight

With a Pæan of old days!

Let no bell toll!

Lest her sweet soul,

Amid its hallow'd mirth,

Should catch the note

As it doth float

Up from the damned earth

To friends above, from fiends below,
Th' indignant ghost is riven -
From grief and moan

To a gold throne

Beside the King of Heaven!'

It seems probable that Poe was influenced by the suc cess of The Raven' to rearrange Lenore' in somewhat similar lines of even length.

In the text above I have given the last stanza of the puem as it stands in the Lorimer Graham_copy - a copy of the edition of 1845, corrected by Poe's own hand. In the edition of 1845, uncorrected, the stanz reads as follows:

Avaunt!-avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven -From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.'

Let no bell toll then! - lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!

And I to-night my heart is light! No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a Pean of old days!

It is interesting to note that in this case, and perhaps in this case only, Poe, after changing considerably a passage of his work, later returned to a previous version. The arrangement of ideas in his corrected copy of this fourth stanza is much closer to the 1843 version than to that of 1845.

'That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?'

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath 'gone before,' with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes

The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.

'Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise.

But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!

'Let no bell toll!lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

'Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven

'From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven

ONCE it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visiter shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless-
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

3 Je souscris à ses noms d'Isola d'oro, de Fior di Levante. Ce nom de fleur me rappelle que l'hyacinthe était originaire de l'île de Zante, et que cette île reçut son nom de la plante qu'elle avait portée. (CHATEAUBRIAND, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem.)

...

This poem is a part of Poe's tale of the Fall of the House of Usher,' which should be read entire. Lowell calls it one of the most beautiful of his poems,' and goes on: 'It loses greatly by being taken out of its rich and appropriate setting We know no modern poet who might not have been justly proud of it.... Was ever the wreck and desolation of a noble mind so musically sung?' By the "Haunted Palace" I mean to imply a mind haunted by phantoms-a disordered brain,' says Poe himself, in a letter in which he also accuses Longfellow of plagiarizing from this poem in the Beleaguered City.'