Select Works Of Edgar Allan Poe; Poetical And Prose

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ...which appeared to me at all times nnaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a visitor, or to sounds which must have had existence in his imagination alone. Jt was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar Politian's beautiful tragedy, "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act--a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement--a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion--no woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon the opposite interleaf, were the following English lines, written in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognising it as his own:--i Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine--A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers j And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, "Onward!"--but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute--motionless--aghast I For alas! alas! with me The light of life is o'er. "No more--no more--no more," (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore,) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree. Or the stricken eagle soar! ...