First of all, my dears, The picture off to the right is completely and utterly unedited. I took it. It is one of the most beautiful pictures I've taken, and the longer I look at it, the more interesting things I notice, things that amaze me and impress me, that scare and amuse me.
It is the same with this poem, by the great Edgar Allen Poe. I think the picture and the poem are the same idea in two different disciplines of art.
The poem goes:
TO ONE IN PARADISE
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! 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 grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
-E. A. Poe, 1834.
Read the poem once or twice. Stare at the photograph. Is it just me that sees the similarity??
-SinodadoniS
