Feature

Sarah Z H

With love abounding the atmosphere our hearts have commenced to set out in pursuit of a valentine. That special soul to whom we may capitulate ourselves in pensive zeal. And the man I covet with utter perfection is as biased as his poems. Though many call him the arch-priest of gothic horror I call him 'my poet'…………The chastity of his love fascinates me. Though Edgar Allan Poe is mostly known for his tales of terror and the supernatural, murder mysteries and science fiction I personally signify him as a poet.

Despite my ambivalence towards his unholy alliance with despair I cannot but fall for his personality that influenced his emergence as a writer. Madness triumphantly traveled in the seven seas of his blood. He was a manic-depressive with a power to drive anyone almost to the brink of insanity. His valour can have a bewildering effect :

“The breeze-the breath of God-is still,and the mist up on the hill

Shadowy-shadowy-yet unbroken, In a symbol and a token,-

How it hangs upon the trees - a mystery of mysteries!”
~Spirits Of The Dead~

Allan was a passionate lover. He lived through his love. It had a strange melancholic presence within. In my eyes Allan is the most anomalously romantic poet of all time. The spirituality in his poems is bound to make one sit and think, and maybe an emotive soul living in a forlorn world would feel its tender touch and want to communicate in earnestness. In his words, the depth of human psyche is well portrayed. The intrigue in his verses is mesmerizing. They are frequented simultaneously by the two sisters, mirth and misery……….

“And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances?
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
~To One In Paradise~

Nature is also a weighty ingredient in formation of Allan's poetry. The intermingling of natural and supernatural phenomenon in his poems is evident. The flavour that evokes from his lines gives birth to an out of the world feeling. His genius enchants and enthralls……..The prodigality of his thoughts can hypnotize our senses. His creations often take the reader on a journey through a fairy-tale world and many of them contain other magical conjectures. There is hope and yet discontentment in his lines. Altogether Allan succeeded in bringing out the most absolute and deepest human emotions. I want to end my ode by mentioning a few lines from the poem by Allan I think to be an ultimate elegance for pure and unconditional love:

“For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,

In the sepulcher by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
~Annabel Lee~