Ah, hasten!—ah, let us not linger!

Ah, fly!—let us fly!—for we must."

In terror she spoke; letting sink her

Wings till they trailed in the dust—

In agony sobbed; letting sink her

Plumes till they trailed in the dust—

Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming.

Let us on, by this tremulous light!

Let us bathe in this crystalline light!

Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming

With Hope and in Beauty to-night—

See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!

Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming

And be sure it will lead us aright—

We surely may trust to a gleaming

That cannot but guide us aright

Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,

And tempted her out of her gloom—

And conquered her scruples and gloom;

And we passed to the end of the vista—

But were stopped by the door of a tomb—

By the door of a legended tomb:—

And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,

On the door of this legended tomb?"

She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume!—

'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves that were crispéd and sere—

As the leaves that were withering and sere—

And I cried—"It was surely October,

On this very night of last year,

That I journeyed—I journeyed down here!—

That I brought a dread burden down here—

On this night, of all nights in the year,

Ah! what demon has tempted me here?

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—

This misty mid region of Weir:—

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—

This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it

Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—

The pitiful, the merciful ghouls,

To bar up our way and to ban it

From the secret that lies in these wolds—

From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—

Have drawn up the spectre of a planet

From the limbo of lunary souls—

This sinfully scintillant planet

From the Hell of planetary souls?"

(1847)