Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. James H. Whitty), “Spirits of the Dead,” The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, pp. 120-121


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[page 120, unnumbered:]

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD

I

THY soul shall find itself alone

’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stone —

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy:

II

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Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness — for then

The spirits of the dead who stood

In life before thee are again

In death around thee — and their will

Shall overshadow thee: be still.

III

The night — tho’ clear — shall frown —

And the stars shall look not down,

From their high thrones in the heaven,

With light like Hope to mortals given —

But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

[[v]]

Which would cling to thee for ever:

IV

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish —

Now are visions ne’er to vanish —

From thy spirit shall they pass

[[v]]

No more — like dew-drop from the grass. [page 121:]

V

The breeze — the breath of God — is still —

And the mist upon the hill

Shadowy — shadowy — yet unbroken,

Is a symbol and a token —

How it hangs upon the trees,

A mystery of mysteries! —

 


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Notes:

None.

 

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[S:0 - JHW11, 1911] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Spirits of the Dead (ed. J. H. Whitty, 1911)