All of you fellow toads and readers who frequent my blog probably know I have a page there called 'Off The Shelf,' where I feature my favo(u)rite poems as often as I can get around to doing it, so this assignment was both a reprise and a pleasure to me. I truly believe there's nothing more important to writers than reading, and the wider and more adventurously we read, the more insight and inspiration we get for our own expressions of the craft. For us to share our favourite poems is a way to learn about each others' deepest impulses to write, about who we, as writers, really are.
I was very conflicted about choosing a poem, though. I have a LOT of favourite poems, and favourite poets as well. I almost went with the ultimate poet's poet and a strong influence of mine, Wallace Stevens and his fine and evocative
'Farewell to Florida,' but I thought that as this feature continues we might want to look at our favourites chronologically, to see how we have built up our inner libraries over time, how our tastes have changed, expanded or developed, so I went with my first love, Edgar Allan Poe. (Thank you Susie, for not going with him last week, so I could!)
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By Oscar Halling [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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I have probably at least twenty favourites by Poe, so this didn't exactly narrow things down as much as I'd hoped. I considered some of his well known pieces first. Here are some adaptations of them on you tube--the Alan Parsons Project with their take on
'The Raven,' and a rather tongue in cheek film clip by Tom Hanks reciting
'To Helen,' but I decided everyone had probably read those a zillion times in school or in the Poe years of adolescence.
'The Conqueror Worm' read here in its full deliciousness to Chopin's Funeral March by Vincent Price, also severely tempted me, but in the end, I went with the poem that is my absolute Poe favourite, though it is extremely long and complex, not just because I love it, but because it really illustrates the genius of Poe.
Like much of his best work, it concerns the death of a beautiful woman, which Poe maintained was the most poetic subject that exists. It is both an erudite and very human piece which deals eloquently with grief, love, hope and fate, and the precarious psychic balance of a mind disturbed by death. It's a true pleasure to read out loud, full of riotous imagery, rich, delicious language, perfect rhyme and meter that rolls off the tongue, and an incredible mastery of form.
It is called
'Ulalume: A Ballad.'
I include both the text, in the public domain, of course, and a recording which I thought might be preferred by those who get into poetry auditorially. There are innumerable versions of this on you tube, among them (Tim Buckley's son)
Jeff Buckley's, who does a workmanlike and clear, clean job, or for those who want to sample something more....dramatic, there is
Nico's, of Velvet Underground fame, who gives it a bit of stagy Sixties flavor with her totally out there Ancient Egyptian motif, and her exotic accent.
So without further ado, here is the poem
[Note that like Emily Dickinson, Poe had no problem with the liberal use of the dash..]:
Ulalume: A Ballad
By Edgar Allan
Poe
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 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.
These 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—
Astarte's bediamonded
crescent
Distinct
with its duplicate horn.
And I said—"She is
warmer than Dian:
She
rolls through an ether of sighs—
She
revels in a region 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 Sybilic 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,
But
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 crispèd 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?"
And the reading:
Thanks all, for indulging me by reading this long beauty. I hope you will come to enjoy it as much as I do. I'm curious to hear everyone's favorite passage--mine is the lovely bit about the senescent night, and the cheeks where the worm never dies, but really I love it all.
