Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane” (Study Text - ATMP-EH)

 

[page 43, unnumbered:]

 

Title: TAMERLANE.

 

Rule: —————

 

Stanza: 1

 

Line-01-001 Kind solace in a dying hour! —

Line-01-002 [[indent]] Such, father, is not (now) my theme —

Line-01-003 I will not madly deem that power

Line-01-004 [[indent]] Of Earth may shrive me of the sin

Line-01-005 [[indent]] Unearthly pride hath revell’d in —

 

[[....]]

 

Line-01-033 And a proud spirit which hath striven

Line-01-034 [[indent]] Triumphantly with human kind.

 

Stanza: 4

 

Line-01-035 On mountain soil I first drew life:

Line-01-036 [[indent]] The mists of the Taglay have shed [page 45:]

Line-01-037 [[indent]] Nightly their dews upon my head,

Line-01-038 And, I believe, the winged strife

Line-01-039 And tumult of the headlong air

Line-01-040 Hath nestl’d in my very hair.

 

Stanza: 5

 

Line-01-041 So late from Heaven — that dew — it fell

Line-01-042 [[indent]] (’Mid dreams of an unholy night)

Line-01-043 Upon me — with the touch of Hell,

Line-01-044 [[indent]] While the red flashing of the light

Line-01-045 From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,

Line-01-046 [[indent]] Appeared to my half-closing eye

Line-01-047 [[indent]] The pageantry of monarchy,

Line-01-048 And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar

Line-01-049 [[indent]] Came hurriedly upon me, telling

Line-01-050 [[indent]] Of human battle, where my voice,

Line-01-051 [[indent]] My own voice, silly child! — was swelling

Line-01-052 [[indent]] (O! how my spirit would rejoice,

 

[[....]]

 

Line-01-122 And dimmer nothings which were real —

Line-01-123 [[indent]] (Shadows — and a more shadowy light!)

Line-01-124 Parted upon their misty wings,

Line-01-125 [[indent]] And, so, confusedly, became

Line-01-126 [[indent]] Thine image and — a name — a name!

Line-01-127 Two separate — yet most intimate things.

 

Stanza: 13

 

Line-01-128 I was ambitious — have you known

Line-01-129 [[indent]] The passion, father? You have not:

Line-01-130 A cottager, I mark’d a throne

Line-01-131 Of half the world as all my own,

Line-01-132 [[indent]] And murmur’d at such lowly lot —

Line-01-133 But, just like any other dream,

Line-01-134 [[indent]] Upon the vapor of the dew

Line-01-135 My own had past, did not the beam

Line-01-136 [[indent]] Of Beauty which did while it thro’

Line-01-137 The minute — the hour — the day — oppress

Line-01-138 My mind with double loveliness. [page 50:]

 

Stanza: {{1829-01: 14 }}

 

Line-01-139 We walk’d together on the crown

Line-01-140 Of a high mountain which look’d down

Line-01-141 Afar from its proud natural towers

Line-01-142 [[indent]] Of rock and forest, on the hills —

Line-01-143 The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

Line-01-144 [[indent]] And shouting with a thousand rills.

 

Stanza: {{1829-01: 15 }}

 

Line-01-145 I spoke to her of power and pride,

Line-01-146 [[indent]] But mystically — in such guise

Line-01-147 That she might deem it nought beside

Line-01-148 [[indent]] The moment's converse; in her eyes

Line-01-149 I read, perhaps too carelessly —

Line-01-150 [[indent]] A mingled feeling with my own —

Line-01-151 The flush on her bright cheek, to me

Line-01-152 [[indent]] Seem’d to become a queenly throne

Line-01-153 Too well that I should let it be

Line-01-154 [[indent]] Light in the wilderness alone.

 

Stanza: {{1829-01: 16 }}

 

Line-01-155 I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,

Line-01-156 [[indent]] And donn’d a visionary crown ——

Line-01-157 [[indent]] Yet it was not that Fantasy

Line-01-158 [[indent]] Had thrown her mantle over me — [page 51:]

Line-01-159 But that, among the rabble — men,

Line-01-160 [[indent]] Lion ambition is chain’d down —

Line-01-161 And crouches to a keeper's hand —

Line-01-162 Not so in deserts where the grand

Line-01-163 The wild — the terrible conspire

Line-01-164 With their own breath to fan his fire.

 

Stanza: 17

 

Line-01-165 Look ’round thee now on Samarcand! —

Line-01-166 [[indent]] Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

Line-01-167 Above all cities? in her hand

Line-01-168 [[indent]] Their destinies? in all beside

Line-01-169 Of glory which the world hath known

 

[[....]]

 

Line-01-185 And beauty of so wild a birth —

Line-01-186 Farewell! for I have won the Earth!

 

Stanza: 19

 

Line-01-187 When Hope, the eagle that tower’d, could see

Line-01-188 [[indent]] No cliff beyond him in the sky,

Line-01-189 His pinions were bent droopingly —

Line-01-190 [[indent]] And homeward turn’d his soften’d eye.

 

Stanza: {{1829-01: 20 //1845-02: [[marked for stanzas to be merged]] }}

 

Line-01-191 ’Twas sunset: when the sun will part

Line-01-192 There comes a sullenness of heart

Line-01-193 To him who still would look upon

Line-01-194 The glory of the summer sun.

Line-01-195 That soul will hate the ev’ning mist

Line-01-196 So often lovely, and will list

Line-01-197 To the sound of the coming darkness (known

Line-01-198 To those whose spirits harken) as one

Line-01-199 Who, in a dream of night, would fly

Line-01-200 But cannot from a danger nigh. [page 53:]

 

Stanza: 21

 

Line-01-201 What tho’ the moon — the white moon

Line-01-202 Shed all the splendor of her noon,

Line-01-203 Her smile is chilly — and her beam,

Line-01-204 In that time of dreariness, will seem

Line-01-205 (So like you gather in your breath)

 

[[....]]

 

Line-01-236 Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven

Line-01-237 Above with trelliced rays from Heaven

Line-01-238 No mote may shun — no tiniest fly

Line-01-239 The light’ning of his eagle eye —

Line-01-240 How was it that Ambition crept,

Line-01-241 [[indent]] Unseen, amid the revels there,

Line-01-242 Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt

Line-01-243 [[indent]] In the tangles of Love's very hair?