The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Part 25

[Footnote 28: It was entire in 1687--the most elevated spot in Athens.]

[Footnote 29:

Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows Than have the white b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the queen of love.

'Marlowe.']

[Footnote 30: Pennon, for pinion.--'Milton'.]

TAMERLANE.

Kind solace in a dying hour!

Such, father, is not (now) my theme-- I will not madly deem that power Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revelled in-- I have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope--that fire of fire!

It is but agony of desire: If I _can_ hope--O G.o.d! I can-- Its fount is holier--more divine-- I would not call thee fool, old man, But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit Bowed from its wild pride into shame O yearning heart! I did inherit Thy withering portion with the fame, The searing glory which hath shone Amid the Jewels of my throne, Halo of h.e.l.l! and with a pain Not h.e.l.l shall make me fear again-- O craving heart, for the lost flowers And suns.h.i.+ne of my summer hours!

The undying voice of that dead time, With its interminable chime, Rings, in the spirit of a spell, Upon thy emptiness--a knell.

I have not always been as now: The fevered diadem on my brow I claimed and won usurpingly-- Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Caesar--this to me?

The heritage of a kingly mind, And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.

On mountain soil I first drew life: The mists of the Taglay have shed Nightly their dews upon my head, And, I believe, the winged strife And tumult of the headlong air Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven--that dew--it fell ('Mid dreams of an unholy night) Upon me with the touch of h.e.l.l, While the red flas.h.i.+ng of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er, Appeared to my half-closing eye The pageantry of monarchy; And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling Of human battle, where my voice, My own voice, silly child!--was swelling (O! how my spirit would rejoice, And leap within me at the cry) The battle-cry of Victory!

The rain came down upon my head Unsheltered--and the heavy wind Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

It was but man, I thought, who shed Laurels upon me: and the rush-- The torrent of the chilly air Gurgled within my ear the crush Of empires--with the captive's prayer-- The hum of suitors--and the tone Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

My pa.s.sions, from that hapless hour, Usurped a tyranny which men Have deemed since I have reached to power, My innate nature--be it so: But, father, there lived one who, then, Then--in my boyhood--when their fire Burned with a still intenser glow (For pa.s.sion must, with youth, expire) E'en _then_ who knew this iron heart In woman's weakness had a part.

I have no words--alas!--to tell The loveliness of loving well!

Nor would I now attempt to trace The more than beauty of a face Whose lineaments, upon my mind, Are--shadows on th' unstable wind: Thus I remember having dwelt Some page of early lore upon, With loitering eye, till I have felt The letters--with their meaning--melt To fantasies--with none.

O, she was worthy of all love!

Love as in infancy was mine-- 'Twas such as angel minds above Might envy; her young heart the shrine On which my every hope and thought Were incense--then a goodly gift, For they were childish and upright-- Pure--as her young example taught: Why did I leave it, and, adrift, Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age--and love--together-- Roaming the forest, and the wild; My breast her s.h.i.+eld in wintry weather-- And, when the friendly suns.h.i.+ne smiled.

And she would mark the opening skies, _I_ saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.

Young Love's first lesson is----the heart: For 'mid that suns.h.i.+ne, and those smiles, When, from our little cares apart, And laughing at her girlish wiles, I'd throw me on her throbbing breast, And pour my spirit out in tears-- There was no need to speak the rest-- No need to quiet any fears Of her--who asked no reason why, But turned on me her quiet eye!

Yet _more_ than worthy of the love My spirit struggled with, and strove When, on the mountain peak, alone, Ambition lent it a new tone-- I had no being--but in thee: The world, and all it did contain In the earth--the air--the sea-- Its joy--its little lot of pain That was new pleasure--the ideal, Dim, vanities of dreams by night-- And dimmer nothings which were real-- (Shadows--and a more shadowy light!) Parted upon their misty wings, And, so, confusedly, became Thine image and--a name--a name!

Two separate--yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious--have you known The pa.s.sion, father? You have not: A cottager, I marked a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmured at such lowly lot-- But, just like any other dream, Upon the vapor of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro'

The minute--the hour--the day--oppress My mind with double loveliness.

We walked together on the crown Of a high mountain which looked down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hills-- The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride, But mystically--in such guise That she might deem it nought beside The moment's converse; in her eyes I read, perhaps too carelessly-- A mingled feeling with my own-- The flush on her bright cheek, to me Seemed to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then, And donned a visionary crown-- Yet it was not that Fantasy Had thrown her mantle over me-- But that, among the rabble--men, Lion ambition is chained down-- And crouches to a keeper's hand-- Not so in deserts where the grand-- The wild--the terrible conspire With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!-- Is she not queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not n.o.bly and alone?

Falling--her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne-- And who her sovereign? Timour--he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily A diademed outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!

Which fall'st into the soul like rain Upon the Siroc-withered plain, And, failing in thy power to bless, But leav'st the heart a wilderness!

Idea! which bindest life around With music of so strange a sound And beauty of so wild a birth-- Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly-- And homeward turned his softened eye.

'Twas sunset: When the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun.

That soul will hate the ev'ning mist So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, _would_ fly, But _cannot_, from a danger nigh.

What tho' the moon--tho' the white moon Shed all the splendor of her noon, _Her_ smile is chilly--and _her_ beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death.

And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one-- For all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flown-- Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noon-day beauty--which is all.

I reached my home--my home no more-- For all had flown who made it so.

I pa.s.sed from out its mossy door, And, tho' my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier known-- O, I defy thee, h.e.l.l, to show On beds of fire that burn below, An humbler heart--a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe-- I _know_--for Death who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar.

And rays of truth you cannot see Are flas.h.i.+ng thro' Eternity---- I do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human path-- Else how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love,-- Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt-offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellised rays from Heaven No mote may shun--no tiniest fly-- The light'ning of his eagle eye-- How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love's very hair!

1829.