Alone by Edgar

Allan Poe

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 loved, I loved alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every 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 rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed 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.

The Wind in the Hemlock

by Sara Teasdale

Steely stars and moon of brass,

How mockingly you watch me pass!

You know as well as I how soon

I shall be blind to stars and moon,

Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,

Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.

With envious dark rage I bear,

Stars, your cold complacent stare;

Heart-broken in my hate look up,

Moon, at your clear immortal cup,

Changing to gold from dusky red --

Age after age when I am dead

To be filled up with light, and then

Emptied, to be refilled again.

What has man done that only he Is slave to death -- so brutally

Beaten back into the earth

Impatient for him since his birth?

Oh let me shut my eyes, close out

The sight of stars and earth and be

Sheltered a minute by this tree.

Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs

There moves no anger and no doubt,

No envy of immortal things.

The night-wind murmurs of the sea

With veiled music ceaselessly,

That to my shaken spirit sings.

From their frail nest the robins rouse,

In your pungent darkness stirred,

Twittering a low drowsy word --

And me you shelter, even me.

In your quietness you house

The wind, the woman and the bird.

You speak to me and I have heard:

"If I am peaceful, I shall see

Beauty's face continually;

Feeding on her wine and bread

I shall be wholly comforted,

For she can make one day for me

Rich as my lost eternity."