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- 1829
- FAIRY-LAND
- by Edgar Allan Poe
-
- Dim vales- and shadowy floods-
- And cloudy-looking woods,
- Whose forms we can't discover
- For the tears that drip all over!
- Huge moons there wax and wane-
- Again- again- again-
- Every moment of the night-
- Forever changing places-
- And they put out the star-light
- With the breath from their pale faces.
- About twelve by the moon-dial,
- One more filmy than the rest
- (A kind which, upon trial,
- They have found to be the best)
- Comes down- still down- and down,
- With its centre on the crown
- Of a mountain's eminence,
- While its wide circumference
- In easy drapery falls
- Over hamlets, over halls,
- Wherever they may be-
- O'er the strange woods- o'er the sea-
- Over spirits on the wing-
- Over every drowsy thing-
- And buries them up quite
- In a labyrinth of light-
- And then, how deep!- O, deep!
- Is the passion of their sleep.
- In the morning they arise,
- And their moony covering
- Is soaring in the skies,
- With the tempests as they toss,
- Like- almost anything-
- Or a yellow Albatross.
- They use that moon no more
- For the same end as before-
- Videlicet, a tent-
- Which I think extravagant:
- Its atomies, however,
- Into a shower dissever,
- Of which those butterflies
- Of Earth, who seek the skies,
- And so come down again,
- (Never-contented things!)
- Have brought a specimen
- Upon their quivering wings.
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- -THE END-
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