a most stromy life...

from my anthology of must read (a)merican poems

Edgar Allan Poe

Alone


From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone--
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the mountain –
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by –
From the thunder, and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view –

*

A poem that holds all the best qualites of Poe’s hand: music, darkness, a landscape that is impossible not to believe in. The isolation of the individual in an immense, unyielding universe has never been more clear. Or real. This is the way we think and feel and do.

His work, in any form, is always relevant. A writer whose smallest bits contain pure greatness. And will be read as long as words exist – and eyes.