The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe

By Edgar Allan Poe

"With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion."–Edgar Allan Poe. Containing such famous works as "The Raven", "Lenore", "Annabel Lee", and "To Helen", this complete collection of poetry by Edgar Allan Poe encapsulates the career of one of the best-known and most read American writers. Laden with tones of loneliness, melancholy, and despair, the poetry contained in this volume exerted great influence on the American Romantic and the French Symbolist Movements of the nineteenth century. Today, Poe's poetry is appreciated for its literary genius, not only because of his command of language, rhythms and dramatic imagery, but also because of its emotional insight into a beautiful and tormented mind. His propensity towards the mysterious and the macabre, as well as an ardent preoccupation with death, has led centuries of scholars and readers to enjoy these poems of love, death, and loneliness. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Feb 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781420960488

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, and critic.  Best known for his macabre prose work, including the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” his writing has influenced literature in the United States and around the world.

Book preview

cover.jpg

THE COMPLETE POETRY

OF

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe

By Edgar Allan Poe

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6112-6

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6048-8

This edition copyright © 2018. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of an illustration from The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Edmund Dulac, published by Hodder and Stoughton, New York, 1912.

Please visit www.digireads.com

CONTENTS

ANNABEL LEE

TO MY MOTHER

HYMN

A VALENTINE

FAIRY-LAND

TO HELEN

ISRAFEL

THE CITY IN THE SEA

THE SLEEPER

LENORE

THE VALLEY OF UNREST

THE COLISEUM

SONNET TO ZANTE

BRIDAL BALLAD. TO — —

SONNET—SILENCE

DREAM-LAND

EULALIE—A SONG

TO F——

TO F——S S. O——D

THE RAVEN

TO M. L. S—

ULALUME

TO —— ——

TO HELEN

AN ENIGMA

FOR ANNIE

THE BELLS

ELDORADO

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM

STANZAS

A DREAM

THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST HOUR

THE LAKE: TO——

SONNET—TO SCIENCE

AL AARAAF

ROMANCE

TO ——

TO THE RIVER——

TO ——

TAMERLANE

TO —— ——

DREAMS

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD

EVENING STAR

ELIZABETH

SERENADE

IMITATION

HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS

SCENES FROM POLITIAN

A PÆAN

TO ISADORE

ALONE

TO ONE IN PARADISE

THE HAUNTED PALACE

THE CONQUEROR WORM

THE VILLAGE STREET

THE FOREST REVERIE

BIOGRAPHICAL AFTERWORD

ANNABEL LEE

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden lived whom you may know

By the name of ANNABEL LEE;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my ANNABEL LEE;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

So that her high-born kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE,

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the side of the sea.

TO MY MOTHER

Because I feel that, in the heavens above,

The angels, whispering to one another,

Can find, among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of Mother,

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you,

You who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,

In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.

My mother—my own mother, who died early,

Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

HYMN

At morn—at noon—at twilight dim—

Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!

In joy and woe—in good and ill—

Mother of God, be with me still!

When the Hours flew brightly by

And not a cloud obscured the sky,

My soul, lest it should truant be,

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;

Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,

Let my Future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

A VALENTINE

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies

Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure

Divine—a talisman—an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—

The words—the syllables! Do not forget

The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.

Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes’ scintillating soul, there lie perdus

Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s too.

Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—

Still form a synonym for Truth.—Cease trying!

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

[To translate the address, read the first letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth, and so on to the end. The name will thus appear.]

FAIRY-LAND

Dim vales—and shadowy floods—

And cloudy-looking woods,

Whose forms we can’t discover

For the tears that drip all over.

Huge moons there wax and wane—

Again—again—again—

Every moment of the night—

Forever changing places—

And they put out the star-light

With the breath from their pale faces.

About twelve by the moon-dial

One more filmy than the rest

(A kind which, upon trial,

They have found to be the best)

Comes down—still down—and down

With its centre on the crown

Of a mountain’s eminence,

While its wide circumference

In easy drapery falls

Over hamlets, over halls,

Wherever they may be—

O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea—

Over spirits on the wing—

Over every drowsy thing—

And buries them up quite

In a labyrinth of light—

And then, how deep!—O, deep!

Is the passion of their sleep.

In the morning they arise,

And their moony covering

Is soaring in the skies,

With the tempests as they toss,

Like—almost any thing—

Or a yellow Albatross.

They

Reviews for The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe

[fledgist · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Poe is known for too few of his poems. He deserves to be known for more.

[junesong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love Edgar Allen Poe. He's is one of my favorite poets. I love his dark and eerie style. He has a lot of underlying meanings in his poems (i.e. Annabelle Lee). I like trying to decipher his feelings and emotions within the story. I also enjoy the fact that he's from maryland, like me :)

[janemarieprice · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a necessary addition for anyone who loves Poe or his poetry. It is beautiful and tragic and dark. This collection is complete and not so large as to be unwieldy.

[xuebi-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Poe, not only a noted author but also poet, is not only the author of The Raven - the quintessential American gothic poem, but also the author of numerous other poems worthy of recognition.

This book collects of Poe's poetry from "To Helen" and "Annabel Lee" to "Ulalume" and of course "The Raven".

[nakushitaxotome · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fall of the House of Usher is a wonderful piece with plenty of interesting allusions to Poe's own life. The symbolism is rampant. I'm also a fan of Masque of the Red Death. A favorite quote, "There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion... Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made."Just wonderful.