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- The skies they were ashen and sober;
- The leaves they were crispéd and sere—
- The leaves they were withering and sere;
- It was night in the lonesome October
- Of my most immemorial year;
- 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.
- Here once, through an alley Titanic,
- Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
- Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
- These were days when my heart was volcanic
- As the scoriac rivers that roll—
- As the lavas that restlessly roll
- Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
- In the ultimate climes of the pole—
- That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
- In the realms of the boreal pole.
- Our talk had been serious and sober,
- But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
- Our memories were treacherous and sere—
- For we knew not the month was October,
- And we marked not the night of the year—
- (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
- We noted not the dim lake of Auber—
- (Though once we had journeyed down here)—
- We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
- Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
- And now, as the night was senescent
- And star-dials pointed to morn—
- As the star-dials hinted of morn—
- At the end of our path a liquescent
- And nebulous lustre was born,
- Out of which a miraculous crescent
- Arose with a duplicate horn—
- Astarte's bediamonded crescent
- Distinct with its duplicate horn.
- And I said—"She is warmer than Dian:
- She rolls through an ether of sighs—
- She revels in a region of sighs:
- She has seen that the tears are not dry on
- These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
- And has come past the stars of the Lion
- To point us the path to the skies—
- To the Lethean peace of the skies—
- Come up, in despite of the Lion,
- To shine on us with her bright eyes—
- Come up through the lair of the Lion,
- With love in her luminous eyes."
- But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
- Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust—
- Her pallor I strangely mistrust:—
- Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!
- Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must."
- In terror she spoke, letting sink her
- Wings till they trailed in the dust—
- In agony sobbed, letting sink her
- Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
- Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
- I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming:
- Let us on by this tremulous light!
- Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
- Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
- With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—
- See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!
- Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
- And be sure it will lead us aright—
- We safely may trust to a gleaming
- That cannot but guide us aright,
- Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."
- Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
- And tempted her out of her gloom—
- And conquered her scruples and gloom:
- And we passed to the end of the vista,
- But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
- By the door of a legended tomb;
- And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,
- On the door of this legended tomb?"
- She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—
- 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
- Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
- As the leaves that were crispèd and sere—
- As the leaves that were withering and sere,
- And I cried—"It was surely October
- On this very night of last year
- That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—
- That I brought a dread burden down here—
- On this night of all nights in the year,
- Oh, what demon has tempted me here?
- Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
- This misty mid region of Weir—
- Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—
- In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
- Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it
- Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—
- The pitiful, the merciful ghouls—
- To bar up our way and to ban it
- From the secret that lies in these wolds—
- From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—
- Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
- From the limbo of lunary souls—
- This sinfully scintillant planet
- From the Hell of the planetary souls?"
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