Classic Love Poems
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Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. In his early poems, Poe adopted common themes of the day—imagery of heavenly bliss, angelic beauty, and love. His first collection,Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was inspired in part by the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and mostly Lord Byron, whom he greatly admired. In 1836, Poe married Virginia Eliza Clemm, his thirteen-year-old first cousin. Of her, he wrote: “I loved as no man ever loved before.” Poe is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, including The Pit and the Pendulum (1842), The Tell-Tale Heart (1843), The Premature Burial (1844), and The Raven (1845).
Virginia Clemm Poe
by Thomas Sully
Virginia, who was deeply devoted to her husband, composed an acrostic poem for him, dated February 14, 1846:
Ever with thee I wish to roam– Dearest my life is thine. Give me a cottage for my home And a rich old cypress vine, Removed from the world with its sin and care And the tattling of many tongues. Love alone shall guide us when we are there– Love shall heal my weakened lungs; And oh, the tranquil hours we'll spend, Never wishing that others may see! Perfect ease we'll enjoy, without thinking to lend Ourselves to the world and its glee– Ever peaceful and blissful we'll be
To —
I saw thee on thy bridal day—
When a burning blush came o’er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee:
And in thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)
Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of loveliness could see.
That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—
As such it well may pass—
Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
In the breast of him, alas!
Who saw thee on that bridal day,
When that deep blush would come o’er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay;
The world all love before thee.
A Dream Within a Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet, if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Eulalie
I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride—
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
Ah, less—less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
And never a flake
That the eyes of the radiant girl!
And never a flake
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl—
Can compare with the bright-eyes Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.
Now doubt—now pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarté within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye—
While every to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
on “Poe, Edgar Allan”
