There is a notable nightmarish and intangible quality to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” as there is in many of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic masterpieces—a vague sense of foreboding, a floating uneasiness, or shadowy moodiness that is beyond the power of words to express... Edgar Allan Poe. Enigmatic. Eccentric. Erratic. Melancholic. Alcoholic. Neurotic. [...]
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And [...]
I. Hear the sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the [...]
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 [...]
Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain — Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies Come to life and fade away; What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion [...]
“The Black Cat” is a story that collapses in despair over the primal terror of mindless tragedy—which is precisely what makes it a devilishly good read… Even as nature falls asleep under the fiery spell of autumn, there awakens in the lords of nature a keen spiritual sensitivity that can be a type of perversity. [...]
LO! Death hath rear'd himself a throne In a strange city, all 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 Are — not like any thing of ours — Oh no! [...]
The happiest day—the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown. Of power! said I? yes! such I ween; But they have vanish’d long, alas! The visions of my youth have been— But let them pass. […]
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? [...]
There is something of the madman in every man. There is something of the sadist in every sinner. Is there something of ecstasy in every elegy? So it was with Edgar Allan Poe—and he called it Beauty. It often takes a poet—a poet like Poe—to exhume the mysterious depravity of people. As churchgoers lean into [...]
Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow Of chrystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty — the unhidden heart — The playful maziness of art In old Alberto’s daughter; But when within thy wave she looks — Which glistens then, and trembles — Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her [...]
As winter descends, allow me to recommend to you, dear reader, six pieces of classical music that will warm your soul, as you curl up by the fire with a good book and a hot toddy. […]