Evening Star

by Edgar Allan Poe

Evening Star

'Twas noontide of summer,

And mid-time of night;

And stars, in their orbits,

Shone pale, thro' the light

Of the brighter, cold moon,

'Mid planets her slaves,

Herself in the Heavens,

Her beam on the waves.

I gazed awhile

On her cold smile;

Too cold- too cold for me-

There pass'd, as a shroud,

A fleecy cloud,

And I turned away to thee,

Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be;

For joy to my heart

Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

And more I admire

Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light. 

A Dream Within A Dream 

Take this kiss upon the brow! 

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream; 

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep! 

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp? 

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave? 

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? 

The Lake 

In spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot

The which I could not love the less-

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall

Upon that spot, as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by

Murmuring in melody-

Then- ah then I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight-

A feeling not the jewelled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define-

Nor Love- although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining-

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.