Explore "To One in Paradise" by Edgar Allan Poe on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Thou wast all that to me, love, / For which my soul did pine --
A green isle in the sea, love, / A fountain and a shrine, / All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers / And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise / But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries, / "On! on! " -- but o'er the Past / (Dim gulf! ) my spirit hovering lies / Mute, motionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me / The light of Life is o'er!
"No more -- no more -- no more" --
(Such language holds the solemn sea / To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, / Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances, / And all my nightly dreams / Are where thy dark eye glances, / And where thy footstep gleams --
In what ethereal dances, / By what eternal streams!
Alas! for that accursèd time / They bore thee o'er the billow, / From love to titled age and crime, / And an unholy pillow! --
From me, and from our misty clime, / Where weeps the silver willow!