Classic Poem

They have laid thee down to slumber, where the sorrows that encumber
Such a wild and wayward heart as thine, can never reach thee more;
From the weariness and sadness, from the fever and the madness,
Of a life that knew no gladness, to a bright and blessed shore —
To the wondrous joy and beauty of the distant Aidenn shore,
Thou art gone forevermore.

Thou wert like a meteor glancing through a starry sky, entrancing,
Thrilling, awing rapt beholder with the wondrous light it wore;
But the meteor has descended, and the " Nightly " shadows blended;
For the fever-dream is ended, and the fearful crisis o'er —
Yes, the wild, unresting fever-dream of human life is o'er;
Thou art sleeping evermore.

Ocean, earth and air could utter words that made thy spirit flutter,
Words that stirred the hidden fountain welling in thy bosom's core;
Stirred it till its wavelets sighing, wakened to a wild replying,
And in numbers never dying sung the heart's unwritten lore —
Sung in wild, bewitching numbers, thy sad heart's unwritten lore,
Now unwritten nevermore.

There was something sad and lonely in thy mystic songs, that only
Could have trembled from a spirit weary of the life it bore;
Something like the plaintive toning of a hidden streamlet moaning,
In its prisoned darkness moaning, for the light it knew before —
For the fragrance and the sunlight that had gladdened it before,
Sighing, sighing evermore.

To thy gifted spirit dreaming came a strange effulgence beaming,
Beaming, flashing from a region mortals never may explore;
Spirits led thee in thy trances through a realm of gloomy fancies,
Giving spectres to thy glances man had never seen before;
Wondrous spectres, such as human eye had never seen before,
Were around thee evermore.

Thou didst see the starlight quiver over many a fabled river;
Thou didst wander with the shadows of the mighty dead of yore;
And thy songs to us came ringing like the wild, unearthly singing
Of the viewless spirits winging o'er " the night's Plutonian shore " —
Of the weary spirits wandering by the gloomy Stygian shore,
Singing dirges evermore.

Thou didst seem like one benighted, one whose hopes were crushed and blighted,
Mourning for the lost and lovely that the world could not restore;
But an endless rest is given to thy heart so wrecked and riven,
Thou hast met again in heaven with the " lost " and loved " Lenore " —
With the " rare and radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore; "
She will leave thee nevermore.

From the earth a star has faded, and the shrine of song is shaded,
And the muses veil their faces, weeping sorrowful and sore;
But the harp all rent and broken left us many a thrilling token —
We shall hear its numbers spoken, and repeated o'er and o'er;
Till our hearts shall cease to tremble, we shall hear them sounding o'er.
Sounding ever, evermore.

We shall hear them like a fountain tinkling down a rugged mountain,
Like the wailing of the tempest mingling with the ocean's roar,
Like the winds of autumn sighing when the summer flowers are dying,
Like a spirit voice replying from a dim and distant shore —
Like a wild, mysterious echo from a distant, shadowy shore,
We shall hear them evermore.

Never more wilt thou undaunted wander through " the Palace haunted, "
Or the " cypress vales Titanic " which thy spirit did explore:
Never hear the " Ghoul " king dwelling in the ancient steeple telling,
With a slow and solemn knelling, losses human hearts deplore —
Telling " in a sort of Rhunic rhyme " the losses we deplore;
Tolling, tolling evermore.

If a " living human being " ever had the gift of " seeing "
The " grim and ghastly " countenance his " evil " genius wore,
It was thee, " unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast, and followed faster, till " thy " songs one burden bore —
Till the dirges of thy " hope one melancholy burden bore,
Of never, nevermore. "