(E.A.Poe)
Jeff performed a reading of this poem by Edgar Allan Poe for the tribute compilation CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF RABIES, produced by Hal Willner
The skies were ashen and sober
The leaves they were crisped and sere
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber
In the misty mid region of Weir
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir
Here once, through an alley, Titanic
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaaneck
In the ultimate climes of the pole
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaaneck
In the realms of the boreal pole
Our talk had been serious and sober
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere
Our memories were treacherous and sere
For we knew not the month was October
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!);
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here)
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir
And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn
As the star-dials hinted of morn
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn
And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs
She reveals in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies
To the Lethean peace of the skies;
Come up, in despite of the Lion
To shine on us with her bright eyes
Come up through the lair of the Lion
With love in her luminous eyes."
But Psyche, uplifting her finger
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust
Her pallor I strangely mistrust;
Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! let us fly! for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until 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!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming
And be sure it will lead us aright;
We safely 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!
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped 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
Of 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
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"
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