Verbal Expression

by Edgar Allan Poe
  In the greenest of our valleys
    By good angels tenanted,
  Once a fair and stately palace–
    Radiant palace–reared its head.
  In the monarch Thought’s dominion–
    It stood there!
  Never seraph spread a pinion
    Over fabric half so fair!

  Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
    On its roof did float and flow,
  (This–all this–was in the olden
    Time long ago),
  And every gentle air that dallied,
    In that sweet day,
  Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
    A winged odor went away.

  Wanderers in that happy valley,
    Through two luminous windows, saw
  Spirits moving musically,
    To a lute’s well-tunëd law,
  Bound about a throne where, sitting
    (Porphyrogene!)
  In state his glory well befitting,
    The ruler of the realm was seen.

  And all with pearl and ruby glowing
    Was the fair palace door,
  Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
    And sparkling evermore,
  A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
    Was but to sing,
  In voices of surpassing beauty,
    The wit and wisdom of their king.

  But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
    Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
  (Ah, let us mourn!–for never morrow
    Shall dawn upon him desolate !)
  And round about his home the glory
    That blushed and bloomed,
  Is but a dim-remembered story
    Of the old time entombed.

  And travellers, now, within that valley,
    Through the red-litten windows see
  Vast forms, that move fantastically
    To a discordant melody,
    While, like a ghastly rapid river,
    Through the pale door
  A hideous throng rush out forever
    And laugh–but smile no more.

by Edgar Allan Poe
I.

Hear the sledges with the bells–
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In their icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden-notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.

Hear the loud alarum bells–
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells–
Of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells–
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people–ah, the people–
They that dwell up in the steeple.
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone–
They are neither man nor woman–
They are neither brute nor human–
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells–
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells–
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells–
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells–
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

by Emily Dickinson

Read, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!

Read then of faith
That shone above the fagot;
Clear strains of hymn
The river could not drown;
Brave names of men
And celestial women,
Passed out of record
Into renown!

Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards — day!

by Horatio Alger, Jr.

King Cotton looks from his window
  Towards the westering sun,
And he marks, with an anguished horror,
  That his race is almost run.

His form is thin and shrunken;
  His cheek is pale and wan;
And the lines of care on his furrowed brow
  Are dread to look upon.

But yesterday a monarch,
  In the flush of his pomp and pride,
And, not content with his own broad lands,
  He would rule the world beside.

He built him a stately palace,
  With gold from beyond the sea;
And he laid with care the corner-stone,
  And he called it Slavery:

He summoned an army with banners,
  To keep his foes at bay;
And, gazing with pride on his palace walls,
  He said, “They will stand for aye!”

But the palace walls are shrunken,
  And partly overthrown,
And the storms of war, in their violence,
  Have loosened the corner-stone.

Now Famine stalks through the palace halls,
  With her gaunt and pallid train;
You can hear the cries of famished men,
  As they cry for bread in vain.

The king can see, from his palace walls.
  A land by his pride betrayed;
Thousands of mothers and wives bereft.
  Thousands of graves new-made.

And he seems to see, in the lowering sky,
  The shape of a flaming sword;
Whereon he reads, with a sinking heart,
  The anger of the Lord.

God speed the time when the guilty king
  Shall be hurled from his blood-stained throne;
And the palace of Wrong shall crumble to dust,
  With its boasted corner-stone.

A temple of Freedom shall rise instead,
  On the desecrated site:
And within its shelter alike shall stand
  The black man and the white.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

We built a ship upon the stairs
All made of the back-bedroom chairs,
And filled it full of sofa pillows
To go a-sailing on the billows.

We took a saw and several nails,
And water in the nursery pails;
And Tom said, “Let us also take
An apple and a slice of cake;”–
Which was enough for Tom and me
To go a-sailing on, till tea.

We sailed along for days and days,
And had the very best of plays;
But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,
So there was no one left but me.

by Edgar Allan Poe
  In spring of youth it was my lot
  To haunt of the wide world a spot
  The which I could not love the less–
  So lovely was the loneliness
  Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
  And the tall pines that towered around.

  But when the Night had thrown her pall
  Upon the spot, as upon all,
  And the mystic wind went by
  Murmuring in melody–
  Then–ah, then, I would awake
  To the terror of the lone lake.

  Yet that terror was not fright,
  But a tremulous delight–
  A feeling not the jewelled mine
  Could teach or bribe me to define–
  Nor Love–although the Love were thine.

  Death was in that poisonous wave,
  And in its gulf a fitting grave
  For him who thence could solace bring
  To his lone imagining–
  Whose solitary soul could make
  An Eden of that dim lake.

by Emily Dickinson
There came a day at summer’s full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other’s crucifix,
We gave no other bond.

Sufficient troth that we shall rise –
Deposed, at length, the grave –
To that new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of Love!

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
  Of lofty contemplation left to Time
  By buried centuries of pomp and power!
  At length–at length–after so many days
  Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
  (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
  I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
  Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
  My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

  Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
  Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
  I feel ye now–I feel ye in your strength–
  O spells more sure than e’er Judæan king
  Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
  O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
  Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

  Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
  Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
  A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
  Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
  Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
  Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
  Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
  Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
  The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

  But stay! these walls–these ivy-clad arcades–
  These mouldering plinths–these sad and blackened shafts–
  These vague entablatures–this crumbling frieze–
  These shattered cornices–this wreck–this ruin–
  These stones–alas! these gray stones–are they all–
  All of the famed, and the colossal left
  By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

  “Not all”–the Echoes answer me–”not all!
  Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
  From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
  As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
  We rule the hearts of mightiest men–we rule
  With a despotic sway all giant minds.
  We are not impotent–we pallid stones.
  Not all our power is gone–not all our fame–
  Not all the magic of our high renown–
  Not all the wonder that encircles us–
  Not all the mysteries that in us lie–
  Not all the memories that hang upon
  And cling around about us as a garment,
  Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Thou wouldst be loved?–then let thy heart
    From its present pathway part not;
  Being everything which now thou art,
    Be nothing which thou art not.
  So with the world thy gentle ways,
    Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
  Shall be an endless theme of praise.
    And love a simple duty.