{"id":174,"date":"2007-12-31T08:50:25","date_gmt":"2007-12-31T12:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=174"},"modified":"2008-07-24T17:34:20","modified_gmt":"2008-07-24T21:34:20","slug":"to-helen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=174","title":{"rendered":"To Helen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah and I made a visit to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum<\/a> here in Richmond. It was a dreary, rainy, melancholy day\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperfect, in other words, to visit Edgar. In the middle of the place is the Enchanted Garden, said to be fashioned from the descriptions in a couple of Poe poems, one of which is a favorite of mine, “To Helen.” There are two Poe poems so named. This one was sent to Sarah Helen Whitman<\/a>, unsigned, untitled. She took it to a friend for a “psychometric reading.” You see in the photo how much she liked it. That Poe was quite a charmer, I must say.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

TO HELEN.<\/p>\n

I SAW thee once \u00e2\u20ac\u201d once only \u00e2\u20ac\u201d years ago:
\nI must not say how many \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but not many.
\nIt was a July midnight; and from out
\nA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
\nSought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
\nThere fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
\nWith quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
\nUpon the upturned faces of a thousand
\nRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,
\nWhere no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
\nThat gave out, in return for the love-light,
\nTheir odorous souls in an ecstatic death \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
\nThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
\nBy thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.<\/p>\n

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
\nI saw thee half reclining; while the moon
\nFell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,
\nAnd on thine own, upturn’d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d alas, in sorrow!<\/p>\n

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nWas it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
\nThat bade me pause before that garden-gate,
\nTo breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
\nNo footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
\nSave only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d oh, God!
\nHow my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
\nSave only thee and me. I paused \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I looked \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd in an instant all things disappeared.
\n(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)<\/p>\n

The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
\nThe mossy banks and the meandering paths,
\nThe happy flowers and the repining trees,
\nWere seen no more: the very roses’ odors
\nDied in the arms of the adoring airs.
\nAll \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all expired save thee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d save less than thou:
\nSave only the divine light in thine eyes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSave but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
\nI saw but them \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they were the world to me!
\nI saw but them \u00e2\u20ac\u201d saw only them for hours,
\nSaw only them until the moon went down.
\nWhat wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
\nUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
\nHow dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
\nHow silently serene a sea of pride!
\nHow daring an ambition; yet how deep \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nHow fathomless a capacity for love!<\/p>\n

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
\nInto a western couch of thunder-cloud;
\nAnd thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
\nDidst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
\nThey would not go \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they never yet have gone;
\nLighting my lonely pathway home that night,
\nThey have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
\nThey follow me \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they lead me through the years.
\nThey are my ministers \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet I their slave.
\nTheir office is to illumine and enkindle \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nMy duty, to be saved by their bright light,
\nAnd purified in their electric fire,
\nAnd sanctified in their elysian fire.
\nThey fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
\nAnd are far up in Heaven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the stars I kneel to
\nIn the sad, silent watches of my night;
\nWhile even in the meridian glare of day
\nI see them still \u00e2\u20ac\u201d two sweetly scintillant
\nVenuses, unextinguished by the sun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah and I made a visit to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum here in Richmond. It was a dreary, rainy, melancholy day\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperfect, in other words, to visit Edgar. In the middle of the place is the Enchanted Garden, said to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-images","category-poems"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}