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(1824)

      This poem, most likely incomplete, was never printed in Poe’s lifetime. Its two lines were found written on a page of some of John Allan’s financial records. This is the earliest surviving manuscript in Poe’s own hand.

      Last night, with many cares and toils oppress’d

      Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest—

       R

A Dream

      “A Dream” is a lyric poem that first appeared without a title in Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827. The narrator’s “dream of joy departed” causes him to confuse the difference between dream and reality. Its title was attached when it was published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems in 1829.

      In visions of the dark night

      I have dreamed of joy departed—

      But a waking dream of life and light

      Hath left me broken-hearted.

      Ah! what is not a dream by day

      To him whose eyes are cast

      On things around him with a ray

      Turned back upon the past?

      That holy dream—that holy dream,

      While all the world were chiding,

      Hath cheered me as a lovely beam

      A lonely spirit guiding.

      What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

      So trembled from afar—

      What could there be more purely bright

      In Truth’s day-star?

       R

Dreams

      Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

      My spirit not awakening, till the beam

      Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

      Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,

      ‘Twere better than the cold reality

      Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,

      And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,

      A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.

      But should it be—that dream eternally

      Continuing—as dreams have been to me

      In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,

      ‘Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.

      For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright

      I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light

      And loveliness—have left my very heart

      In climes of my imagining, apart

      From mine own home, with beings that have been

      Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?

      ‘Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour

      From my remembrance shall not pass—some power

      Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind

      Came o’er me in the night, and left behind

      Its image on my spirit—or the moon

      Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon

      Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was

      That dream was as that night-wind—let it pass.

      I have been happy, tho’ in a dream.

      I have been happy—and I love the theme:

      Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,

      As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

      Of semblance with reality, which brings

      To the delirious eye, more lovely things

      Of Paradise and Love—and all our own!

      Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

       R

Evening Star (1827)

      This lyric poem by Poe was first collected in Tamerlane and Other Poems early in Poe’s career in 1827. In the poem, a stargazer thinks all the stars he sees look cold, except for one “Proud Evening Star” which looks warm with a “distant fire” the other stars lack. The poem was influenced by Thomas Moore’s poem “While Gazing on the Moon’s Light”.

      The poem was not included in Poe’s second poetry collection, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, and was never re-printed during his lifetime.

      “Evening Star” was adapted by choral composer Jonathan Adams into his Three Songs from Edgar Allan Poe in 1993.

      ‘Twas noontide of summer,

      And mid-time of night;

      And stars, in their orbits,

      Shone pale, thro’ the light

      Of the brighter, cold moon,

      ‘Mid planets her slaves,

      Herself in the Heavens,

      Her beam on the waves.

      I gazed awhile

      On her cold smile;

      Too cold—too cold for me—

      There pass’d, as a shroud,

      A fleecy cloud,

      And I turned away to thee,

      Proud Evening Star,

      In thy glory afar,

      And dearer thy beam shall be;

      For joy to my heart

      Is the proud part

      Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

      And more I admire

      Thy distant fire,

      Than that colder, lowly light.

       R

Imitation (1827)

      The poem “Imitation” was first published in Poe’s early collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. The 20-line poem is made up of rhymed couplets where the speaker likens his youth to a dream as his reality becomes more and more difficult. It has been considered potentially autobiographical, written during deepening strains in Poe’s relationship with his foster-father John Allan.

      After several revisions, this poem evolved into the poem “A Dream Within A Dream.”

      A dark unfathomed 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

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