Into thy hour of secrecy.
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 then o'ershadow thee - be still:
For the night, tho' clear, shall frown;
And the stars shall look not down
From their thrones, in the dark heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy withering heart shall seem
As a burning, and a fever
Which would cling to thee forever.
But 'twill leave thee, as each star
In the morning light afar

Will fly thee and vanish:

But its thought thou canst not banish.

The breath of God will be still;
And the mist upon the hill

By that summer breeze unbroken

Shall charm thee

- as a token,

And a symbol which shall be
Secrecy in thee.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

The soul in unlovely solitude surrounded by the spirits of the dead shall, under a frowning sky, see red-orbed stars shining without hope. There is in this poem, which may have been suggested by the death of Mrs. Stanard (April 28, 1824), a reference to gray tombstones.

The form is irregular, consisting of four stanzas of varying number of lines. The movement is iambic, with some trochaic inversions.

EVENING STAR.
Page 15.

1827.

Text, 1827.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

The poet prefers the distant fire of the proud evening star to the colder lowly light of the midnight mid-summer

moon.

Note in this poem the repetitions of such words as light, night, etc.

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

Page 16.

IMITATION, 1827; To—, 1829; TAMERLANE, 1831: A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM, GRISWOLD, 1849.

Text, Griswold.

The earliest version (1827) runs as follows:

IMITATION.

A dark unfathom'd tide
Of interminable pride –
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!

Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul :
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass'd on :
I care not tho' it perish

With a thought I then did cherish.

The 1829 revision is as follows :

Το

And I hold within my hand
Some particles of sand
How few! and how they creep
Thro' my fingers to the deep!
My early hopes ? no-they
Went gloriously away,
Like lightning from the sky
At once- and so will I.

So young! Ah! no-not now
Thou hast not seen my brow,

But they tell thee I am proud -
They lie they lie aloud -

My bosom beats with shame
At the paltriness of name
With which they dare combine
A feeling such as mine-
Nor Stoic? I am not :
In the terror of my lot
I laugh to think how poor
That pleasure to endure !
What! shade of Zeno !-I!
Endure !

-

nono- - defy.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

My days have been a dream and hope has vanished. Time like sand grains slips through the fingers and every thing is a dream within a dream. Note this figure inLocksley Hall.”

It does not materially aid the interpretation of this poem to consider it a part of "Tamerlane.'

It consists of iambic trimeter riming generally in couplets.

STANZAS.

Page 17.

IN YOUTH HAVE I KNOWN ONE WITH WHOM THE EARTH. 1827.

Text, 1827.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

One whose life was lit from sun and stars knew not the

power over him. The light was fraught with sovereignty and passed with a quickening spell, the token of God's gifts to him who strives and overcomes.

This Reply of Nature to our Intelligence is a monologue of a genius who feels the mysterious power and in its strangeness finds a sign and token of God's gift of beauty to the artist. Note the occurrence in this poem of such conceptions as God, immortality, intimations of the future, etc.

The form of this poem is the Ottava Rima of which Byron was so fond. The prefixed quotation from Byron is taken from Section XVI. of the Island. This was written in Genoa and published in June, 1823. If this poem was the hint to Poe's, then Poe's poem was not written until after 1823 instead of in 1821-2.

A DREAM.

Page 19.

1827 (without title); 1829, 1845; BROADWAY
JOURNAL, II. 6.

Text, 1845.

In 1827 this poem occurs without title.