Ворон - Эдгар Аллан По

        For ’mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

When, from our little cares apart,

        And laughing at her girlish wiles,

I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,

        And pour my spirit out in tears —

There was no need to speak the rest —

        No need to quiet any fears

Of her – who ask’d no reason why,

But turn’d on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love

My spirit struggled with, and strove,

When, on the mountain peak, alone,

Ambition lent it a new tone —

I had no being – but in thee[20]:

        The world, and all it did contain

In the earth – the air – the sea —

        Its joy – its little lot of pain

That was new pleasure – the ideal,

        Dim, vanities of dreams by night —

And dimmer nothings which were real —

        (Shadows – and a more shadowy light!)

Parted upon their misty wings,

        And, so, confusedly, became

        Thine image and – a name – a name!

Two separate – yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious – have you known

        The passion, father? You have not:

A cottager, I mark’d a throne

Of half the world as all my own,

        And murmur’d at such lowly lot —

But, just like any other dream,

        Upon the vapor of the dew

My own had past, did not the beam

        Of beauty which did while it thro’

The minute – the hour – the day – oppress

My mind with double loveliness.

We walk’d together on the crown

Of a high mountain which look’d down

Afar from its proud natural towers

        Of rock and forest, on the hills —

The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

        And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,

        But mystically – in such guise

That she might deem it nought beside

        The moment’s converse; in her eyes

I read, perhaps too carelessly —

        A mingled feeling with my own —

The flush on her bright cheek, to me

        Seem’d to become a queenly throne

Too well that I should let it be

        Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then

        And donn’d a visionary crown —

        Ye t it was not that Fantasy

        Had thrown her mantle over me —

But that, among the rabble – men,

        Lion ambition is chain’d down —

And crouches to a keeper’s hand —

Not so in deserts where the grand —

The wild – the terrible conspire

With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look ‘round thee now on Samarcand! —

        Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

Above all cities? in her hand

        Their destinies? in all beside

Of glory which the world hath known

Stands she not nobly and alone?

Falling – her veriest stepping-stone

Shall form the pedestal of a throne —

And who her sovereign? Timour – he

        Whom the astonished people saw

Striding o’er empires haughtily

        A diadem’d outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given,

On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!

Which fall’st into the soul like rain

Upon the Siroc-wither’d plain,

And, failing in thy power to bless,

But leav’st the heart a wilderness!

Idea! which bindest life around

With music of so strange a sound

And beauty of so wild a birth —

Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that tower’d, could see

        No cliff beyond him in the sky,

His pinions were bent droopingly —

        And homeward turn’d his soften’d eye.

’Twas sunset: when the sun will part

There comes a sullenness of heart

To him who still would look upon

The glory of the summer sun.

That soul will hate the ev’ning mist

So often lovely, and will list

To the sound of the coming darkness (known

To those whose spirits harken) as one

Who, in a dream of night, would fly

But cannot from a danger nigh.

What tho’ the moon – the white moon

Shed all the splendor of her noon,

Her smile is chilly – and her beam,

In that time of dreariness, will seem

(So like you gather in your breath)

A portrait taken after death.

And boyhood is a summer sun

Whose waning is the dreariest one —

For all we live to know is known

And all we seek to keep hath flown —

Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall

With the noon-day beauty – which is all.

I reach’d my home – my home no more —

        For all had flown who made it so.

I pass’d from out its mossy door,

        And, tho’ my tread was soft and low,

A voice came from the threshold stone

Of one whom I had earlier known —

        О, I defy thee, Hell, to show

        On beds of fire that burn below,

        An humbler heart – a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe —

        I know – for Death who comes for me

        From regions of the blest afar,

Where there is nothing to deceive,

        Hath left his iron gate ajar,

        And rays of truth you cannot see

        Are flashing thro’ Eternity —