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Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine —
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreath'd with fairy fruits, and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry hope that dids’t arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries
“Onward!” — but o'er the Past,
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute, motionless, aghast.
And all my hours are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Elysian streams.
Edgar Allan Poe.
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Notes:
If this manuscript is authentic, it was presumably given as an autograph. The signature, bearing Poe's full name, is highly unusual and may be part of what raised Mabbott's suspicions. It is a shortened version of the poem, and in this way resembles the accepted “Herring” manuscript of just the first and last stanzas. It is also curious that the poem gives the text of “To One in Paradise,” but with a title that was never used anywhere else for this poem (but was used for another). If the manuscript is a forgery, it is a very skillfully made one.
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[S:1 - MS, about 1844] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - To One in Paradise (Text-10)