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| Edgar Allan Poe |
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
A friend sent me this quotation the other day, and I loved the beautiful language and the soft imagery. It strikes me as a near-perfect description of the photograph that introduces my blog. These lines come from a poem called "The Sleeper." There are many possible readings of them. One is the approach of death. Another might be the transport of a moon-induced inspiration into the "universal" consciousness, a rather vague idea that represents to me the effort to create a novel. Or are those a single reading?
The poem is explicitly about death, not an unusual subject for Poe. A bit further into it:
ReplyDeleteMy love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold
It's always good to be reintroduced to one of Poe's poems.
Thanks, Steve. You're right of course.
ReplyDeleteSome Poe admirers think his romantic poems were intended as satire, though I don't see satire in this one.
this is definitely a near-perfect description of your picture...you are absolutely correct about that!
ReplyDeleteWas he thinking of just such a moon?
ReplyDelete