The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Edgar Allan Poe



The Haunted Palace



Poem lyrics of The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe.



In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace -

Radiant palace - reared its head.

In the monarch Thought's dominion -

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!



Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow,

(This - all this - was in the olden

Time long ago,)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A winged odor went away.



Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically,

To a lute's well-tuned law,

Round about a throne where, sitting

(Porphyrogene!)

In state his glory well-befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.



And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.



But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch's high estate.

(Ah, let us mourn! - for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him desolate!)

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed,

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.



And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

To a discordant melody,

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh - but smile no more.

The City in the Sea

Edgar Allan Poe



Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.



No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free

Up domes up spires up kingly halls

Up fanes up Babylon-like walls

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers

Up many and many a marvelous shrine

Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.



Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.



There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye

Not the gaily-jeweled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Among that wilderness of glass

No swellings tell that winds may be

Upon some far-off happier sea

No heavings hint that winds have been

On seas less hideously serene.



But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide

As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.

The waves have now a redder glow

The hours are breathing faint and low

And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

Shall do it reverence.



The City in the Sea

Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe



The Conqueror Worm

Poem lyrics of The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe.



Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.



Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly-

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Woe!



That motley drama- oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.



But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.



Out- out are the lights- out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.