Page:The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (Volume II).djvu/30



Thoug the rock of my last hope is shivered, And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delirered To pain—it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn— They may torture, but shall not subdue me— 'Tis of thee that I think—not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,— Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 't was not to defame me, Nor mute, that the world might belie.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one— If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'T was folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that which I most cherished Deserved to be dearest of all: In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea, that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while, in his adversity, he still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson—although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived—I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets—not because the impressions he produces are, at all times, the most profound—not because the poetical excitement which he induces is, at all times, the most intense—but because it is, at all times, the most ethereal—in other words, the most elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the