Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/224

 204 EDGAR ALLAN POE �And all my days are trances, �And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, �And where thy footstep gleams* In what ethereal dances, �By what eternal streams. �I find instead a parallelism of structure which is a kind of repetition, a kind that Poe summoned to his service whenever harmony demanded it. �But repetition of structural units is not the distinc- tive note of Poe's verse. Structural repetition is a form of balanced and ordered utterance that is as old as song itself. The ultimate Poe differential is seen not in the repetition of clausal or phrasal patterns but in the repetition of the same or nearly the same thought in the same or nearly the same words. These lines are illustrations, but there is no quaintness in them: �For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea- No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. �Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-y Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride. �As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. " 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door �Only this and nothing more." �The skies they were ashen and sober ; The leaves they were crisped and sere The leaves they were withering and sere. �It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, �In the misty mid region of Weir It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, �In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. ��� �