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not seen,

      Had I let them pass me by,

      With a dreaming eye!

      Let none of earth inherit

      That vision of 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 passed on:

      I care not though it perish

      With a thought I then did cherish.

       R

Song (1827)

      “Song” is a ballad-style poem, which was first published in Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827, the speaker tells of a former love he saw from afar on her wedding day. A blush on her cheek, despite all the happiness around her, displays a hidden shame for having lost the speaker’s love.

      It is believed to reference Poe’s lost teenage love Sarah Elmira Royster, who broke off her engagement with Poe presumably due to her father. She instead married the wealthy Alexander Shelton. If this is the case, Poe was taking poetic license: he was not in Richmond at the time of her wedding.

      I saw thee on thy bridal day—

      When a burning blush came o’er thee,

      Though happiness around thee lay,

      The world all love before thee:

      And in thine eye a kindling light

      (Whatever it might be)

      Was all on Earth my aching sight

      Of Loveliness could see.

      That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—

      As such it well may pass—

      Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

      In the breast of him, alas!

      Who saw thee on that bridal day,

      When that deep blush would come o’er thee,

      Though happiness around thee lay;

      The world all love before thee.

       R

Spirits of the Dead (1827)

      Original manuscript of a revision of “Spirits of the Dead” in Poe’s handwriting.

      “Spirits of the Dead” was first titled “Visits of the Dead” when it was published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. The title was changed for the 1829 collection Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. The poem follows a dialogue between a dead speaker and a person visiting his grave. The spirit tells the person that those who one knows in life surround a person in death as well.

      Thy soul shall find itself alone

      ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;

      Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

      Into thine 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 overshadow thee; be still.

      The night, though clear, shall frown,

      And the stars shall not look 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

      Which would cling to thee for ever.

      Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,

      Now are visions ne’er to vanish;

      From thy spirit shall they pass

      No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

      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!

       R

Stanzas (1827)

      The title “Stanzas” was assigned to this untitled poem originally printed in Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827. Another poem with the title “Stanzas” was published in the Graham’s Magazine in December of 1845 and signed “P.” It was attributed to Poe based on a copy owned by Frances Osgood, on which she had pencilled notes.

       How often we forget all time, when lone

       Admiring Nature’s universal throne;

       Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense

      Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!

      — BYRON, The Island.

       I

      In youth have I known one with whom the Earth

      In secret communing held—as he with it,

      In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:

      Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit

      From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth

      A passionate light—such for his spirit was fit—

      And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour

      Of its own fervor what had o’er it power.

       II

      Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought

      To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,

      But I will half believe that wild light fraught

      With more of sovereignty than ancient lore

      Hath ever told—or is it of a thought

      The unembodied essence, and no more,

      That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass

      As dew of the night-time o’er the summer grass?

       III

      Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye

      To the loved object—so the tear to the lid

      Will start, which lately slept in apathy?

      And yet it need not be—(that object) hid

      From us in life—but common—which doth lie

      Each hour before us—but then only, bid

      With

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