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This was printed as “by E. A. Poe” in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter of April 20, 1833, after its receipt from “E. A. P.” had been acknowledged in the issue of April 13. It was completely forgotten until in 1917 Professor John C. French located a file of the paper for 1833 in the hands of Miss Elizabeth Cloud Seip. He reprinted “Serenade” in the Dial for January 31, 1918 (64:121), and again in Modern Language Notes, May 1918 (33:257-258). Killis Campbell inserted a text in the second issue of his Poems at p. 137. In line 12, I change the sure misprint “mountains,” to “mountain's” but otherwise follow the original printing.
So sweet the hour — so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev’n with lute.
[[n]]
5
At rest on ocean's brilliant dies
[[n]]
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven
Form in the deep another seven:
[[n]]
10
Sees in the sea a second love:
[[n]]
Within the valleys dim and brown, [page 223:]
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And on the spectral mountain's crown
The wearied light is lying down:
[[n]]
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
15
[[n]]
But list, O list! — so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow
20
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude,
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls — O God above!
25
In every deed shall mingle, love.
[1833]
5 The spelling “dies” for “dyes” was tolerated in 1833.
7 Here Poe seems to know that all seven Pleiades are visible. See notes on “Israfel,” line 14.
9 See the notes on “An Acrostic” (“Elizabeth it is in vain”), above, for Poe's use of a different story about the beloved of the Moon. Athenaeus (XIII, xvii), citing a lost work of Licymnius of Chios, says that Endymion sleeps with open eyes.
11f. Compare Poe's motto for his tale, “Silence — a Fable,” which he takes from Alcman and freely translates, “The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are silent.” The original fragment may be seen in any collection of the Greek lyric poets.
12 Compare to this “Tamerlane,” line 139, in the versions of 1829 and 1845: “We walk’d together on the crown / Of a high mountain,” and “Fairy-Land” [I] (1829) lines 16-17: “... on the crown / Of a mountain's eminence.”
14f. Compare Poe's tale “The Sphinx”: “The very air from the South seemed to me redolent of death.”
17 No lady of Poe's acquaintance named Adeline has been found; the word means “of noble birth.”
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Notes:
None.
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[S:1 - TOM1P, 1969] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Serenade)