Edgar Allan Poe - Tamerlane and Other Poems - 1827

Цитата:

TAMERLANE
by Edgar Allan Poe
1827

Kind solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
I have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope–that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope–Oh God! I can-
Its fount is holier–more divine-
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.
O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again-
O craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
The undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness–a knell.

I have not always been as now:
The fever'd diadem on my brow
I claim'd and won usurpingly-
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar–this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.

On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven–that dew–it fell
(Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light
From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy,
And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar
Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child!–was swelling
(O! how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!

The rain came down upon my head
Unshelter'd–and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the rush-
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires–with the captive's prayer-
The hum of suitors–and the tone
Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

My passions, from that hapless hour,
Usurp'd a tyranny which men
Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power,
My innate nature–be it so:
But father, there liv'd one who, then,
Then–in my boyhood–when their fire
Burn'd with a still intenser glow,
(For passion must, with youth, expire)
E'en then who knew this iron heart
In woman's weakness had a part.

I have no words–alas!–to tell
The loveliness of loving well!
Nor would I now attempt to trace
The more than beauty of a face
Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
Are–shadows on th' unstable wind:
Thus I remember having dwelt
Some page of early lore upon,
With loitering eye, till I have felt
The letters–with their meaning–melt
To fantasies–with none.

O, she was worthy of all love!
Love–as in infancy was mine-
'Twas such as angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine
On which my every hope and thought
Were incense–then a goodly gift,
For they were childish and upright-
Pure–as her young example taught:
Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age–and love–together,
Roaming the forest, and the wild;
My breast her shield in wintry weather-
And when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
And she would mark the opening skies,
I saw no Heaven–but in her eyes.

Young Love's first lesson is–the heart:
For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
When, from our little cares apart,
And laughing at her girlish wiles,
I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
And pour my spirit out in tears-
There was no need to speak the rest-
No need to quiet any fears
Of her–who ask'd no reason why,
But turn'd on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love
My spirit struggled with, and strove,
When, on the mountain peak, alone,
Ambition lent it a new tone-
I had no being–but in thee:
The world, and all it did contain
In the earth–the air–the sea-
Its joy–its little lot of pain
That was new pleasure–the ideal,
Dim vanities of dreams by night-

And dimmer nothings which were real-
(Shadows–and a more shadowy light!)
Parted upon their misty wings,
And, so, confusedly, became
Thine image, and–a name–a name!
Two separate–yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious–have you known
The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I mark'd a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmur'd at such lowly lot-
But, just like any other dream,
Upon the vapour of the dew
My own had past, did not the beam
Of beauty which did while it thro'
The minute–the hour–the day–oppress
My mind with double loveliness.

We walk'd together on the crown
Of a high mountain which look'd down
Afar from its proud natural towers
Of rock and forest, on the hills-
The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers,
And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,
But mystically–in such guise
That she might deem it nought beside
The moment's converse; in her eyes
I read, perhaps too carelessly-
A mingled feeling with my own-
The flush on her bright cheek, to me
Seem'd to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
And donn'd a visionary crown-
Yet it was not that Fantasy
Had thrown her mantle over me-
But that, among the rabble–men,
Lion ambition is chained down-
And crouches to a keeper's hand-
Not so in deserts where the grand-
The wild–the terrible conspire
With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!
Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies? in all beside
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling–her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne-
And who her sovereign? Timour–he
Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o'er empires haughtily
A diadem'd outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given
On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
Which fall'st into the soul like rain
Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
And, failing in thy power to bless,
But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
Idea! which bindest life around
With music of so strange a sound,
And beauty of so wild a birth-
Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly-
And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.
'Twas sunset: when the sun will part
There comes a sullenness of heart
To him who still would look upon
The glory of the summer sun.
That soul will hate the ev'ning mist,
So often lovely, and will list
To the sound of the coming darkness (known
To those whose spirits hearken) as one
Who, in a dream of night, would fly
But cannot from a danger nigh.

What tho' the moon–the white moon
Shed all the splendour of her noon,
Her smile is chilly, and her beam,
In that time of dreariness, will seem
(So like you gather in your breath)
A portrait taken after death.
And boyhood is a summer sun
Whose waning is the dreariest one-
For all we live to know is known,
And all we seek to keep hath flown-
Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
With the noon-day beauty–which is all.

I reach'd my home–my home no more
For all had flown who made it so.
I pass'd from out its mossy door,
And, tho' my tread was soft and low,
A voice came from the threshold stone
Of one whom I had earlier known-
O, I defy thee, Hell, to show
On beds of fire that burn below,
A humbler heart–a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe-
I know–for Death, who comes for me
From regions of the blest afar,
Where there is nothing to deceive,
Hath left his iron gate ajar,
And rays of truth you cannot see
Are flashing thro' Eternity-
I do believe that Eblis hath
A snare in every human path-
Else how, when in the holy grove
I wandered of the idol, Love,
Who daily scents his snowy wings
With incense of burnt offerings
From the most unpolluted things,
Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven,
No mote may shun–no tiniest fly-
The lightning of his eagle eye-
How was it that Ambition crept,
Unseen, amid the revels there,
Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
In the tangles of Love's very hair?

THE END

Цитата:
"Tamerlane" is an epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. That collection, with only 50 copies printed, was not credited with the author's real name but by "A Bostonian." The poem's original version was 403 lines but trimmed down to 223 lines for its inclusion in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems.

Synopsis

The poem itself follows a Turko-Mongol conqueror named Tamerlane. The name is a Latinized version of "Timur Lenk", the 14th century warlord, though the poem is not historically accurate.

Tamerlane ignores the young love he has for a peasant in order to achieve power. On his deathbed, he regrets this decision to create "a kingdom [in exchange] for a broken-heart." The peasant is named Ada in most of Poe's original version of the poem, though it is removed and re-added throughout its many revised versions.[1] The name "Ada" is likely a reference to the daughter of Lord Byron, a renowned poet whom Poe admired. In fact, the line "I reach'd my home -- my home no more" echoes a line in Byron's work "Don Juan."[2]

Analysis

The main themes of "Tamerlane" are independence and pride[3] as well as loss and exile.[4] Poe may have written the poem based on his own loss of his early love, Sarah Elmira Royster,[5] his birth mother Eliza Poe, or his foster-mother Frances Allan.[6] The poem may also mirror Poe's relationship with his foster-father John Allan; similar to Poe, Tamerlane is of uncertain parentage, with a "feigned name."[7] Only 19 when he wrote the poem, Poe's own sense of loss came from the waning possibility of inheritance and a college education after leaving the University of Virginia.[8] Distinctly a poem of youth, the poem also discusses themes Poe will use throughout his life, including his tendency toward self-criticism and his ongoing strivings towards perfection.[9]

The poem was influenced by Lord Byron's drama Manfred and his poem "The Giaour" in both manner and style.[10]

Poe may have first heard of Timur in July 1822 as a young man in Richmond, Virginia. A horse-spectacle called Timour the Tartar was staged at the Richmond theatre and repeated in October. Some Poe scholars speculate Poe was in attendance or, at least, heard of the show.[11]

Poe may have identified with the title character. He used "TAMERLANE" as a pseudonym attached to two of his poems on their first publication, "Fanny" and "To ——," both published in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter in 1833.

Publication history

"Tamerlane" was first published in Poe's earliest poetry collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. The "little volume", as Poe referred to it in the preface, consists of 10 poems.[12] This original version of the poem contained 406. In an 1845 publication, it had been edited to only two hundred and thirty-four.[13] Tamerlane and Other Poems, which appeared in June 1827, was forty pages long and credited only by "a Bostonian".[14]
In its initial publication in the collection Tamerlane and Other Poems, Poe included endnotes explaining some of his allusions from "Tamerlane." He also confesses early on that he knows little about the historical Tamerlane, "and with that little, I have taken the full liberty of a poet." These endnotes do not appear in any other collection that includes "Tamerlane."

References

1. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 124. ISBN 0801857309
2. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 41.
3. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 122. ISBN 0801857309
4. ^ Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. p. 27. ISBN 0807123218
5. ^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. Checkmark Books, 2001.
6. ^ Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. p. 27. ISBN 0807123218
7. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 39.
8. ^ Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. p. 27. ISBN 0807123218
9. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 122. ISBN 0801857309
10. ^ Campbell, Killis. "The Origins of Poe", The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962: 150.
11. ^ Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 52. ISBN 0-7838-1401-1
12. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 38–39.
13. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 122. ISBN 0801857309
14. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 38.

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