Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 612 pages of information about Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader.

Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 612 pages of information about Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader.

  Fifty long years ago these sailors died: 
    (None know how many sleep beneath the waves:)
  Fourteen gray head-stones, rising side by side,
                Point out their nameless graves,—­

  Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me,
    And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry,
  And sadder winds, and voices of the sea
                That moans perpetually.

  Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain
    Questioned the distance for the yearning sail,
  That, leaning landward, should have stretched again
                White arms wide on the gale,

  To bring back their beloved.  Year by year,
    Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed,
  And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near,
                And hope was dead at last.

  Still summer broods o’er that delicious land,
    Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow: 
  Live any yet of that forsaken band
                Who loved so long ago?

  O Spanish women, over the far seas,
    Could I but show you where your dead repose! 
  Could I send tidings on this northern breeze,
                That strong and steady blows!

  Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet
    These you have lost, but you can never know
  One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet
                With thinking of your woe!

* * * * *

=_Edgar Allen Poe._= (Manual, p. 510.)

From his Works.

=_384._= “THE RAVEN.”

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,—­
  While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
  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.”

  Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
  Eagerly I wished the morrow;—­vainly I had sought to borrow,
  From my books, surcease of sorrow,—­sorrow for the lost Lenore,—­
  For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,—­
                         Nameless here for evermore.

  And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
  Thrilled me—­filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
  So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
  “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—­
  Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
                         This it is, and nothing more.”

  Presently my soul grew stronger:  hesitating then no longer,
  “Sir,” said I, “or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
  But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
  And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
  That I scarce was sure I heard you.”  Here I opened wide the door;
                         Darkness there,—­and nothing more.

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Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.