Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Irene [The Sleeper]” (Text-01), “Chevallie” manuscript, about March 1830

Tis now — so sings the soaring moon —

Midnight in the sweet month of June,

When winged visions love to lie

Lazily upon Beauty's eye,  

Or worse — upon her brow to dance

In panoply of old Romance,

Till thoughts and locks are left, alas!

A ne’er to be untangled mass.

 

The moon! the moon! who ever heard  

Unmov'd the magic of that word?

I heed not, gazing on thy ray,

Of what the bards about thee say,

But that from off the mountains crown,

Over hamlets — over halls —

Over waterfalls —

O’er the strange woods — o'er the sea —

Over the river far and free —

Into the vallies deep and brown

Thy floods so gorgeously roll down!

 

An influence dewy, drowsy, dim

Is dripping from thy golden rim;

Grey towers are mouldering into rest

Wrapping the fog around their breast;

Looking like Lethe (that dim lake!)

The waves a conscious slumber take

And would not for the world awake; [page 2:]

The rosemary sleeps upon the grave,

The lily lolls upon the wave,

And [[a]] million bright pines to and fro

Are rocking lullabies as they go

To the lone oak that reels with bliss,

And nods above the black abyss.

 

All beauty sleeps: and lo! where lies,

With casement opened to the skies,

Irene with her destinies!

Thus hums the moon within her ear —

“O lady sweet! how cam'st thou here?

“Strange are thine eyelids — strange thy dress

“And strange thy glorious length of tress!

“Sure thou art come, o'er far-off seas,

“A wonder to our desert trees!

“Some spirit hath softly thought it right

“To open thy window to the night,

“And wanton airs, from the tree-top,

“Laughingly thro' the lattice drop

“And wave this crimson canopy,

“Like banners, o'er thy dreaming eye

“Till wildly — fearfully in this hall

“The tinted shadows rise and fall.[[”]]

 

The lady sleeps: the dead all sleep —

As long as Love doth mourn and weep:

Entranced the spirit loves to lie

As long as — tears on Memory's eye; [page 3:]

But when a week or two is by,

And the light laughter chokes the sigh,

Treadeth a pathway little known

To Heaven, disconsolate and alone.

 

The lady sleeps: O! may her sleep,

As it is lasting, so be deep!

I pray to God that she may lie

Forever, with as calm an eye,

That chamber changed for one more holy,

That bed for one more melancholy.

E A Poe.