POE IN THE EYES OF STEINER 

American writer, critic and editor Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his tales and poems of horror and mystery,

"The gay wall of this gaudy tower Grows dim around me — death is near. I had not thought, until this hour When passing from the earth, that ear Of any, were it not the shade Of one whom in life I made All mystery but a simple name, Might know the secret of a spirit Bow’d down in sorrow, and in shame. — Shame said’st thou?" -Tamerlane, Edgar Allan Poe (1827)

"In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less-- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around..." -The Lake, Edgar Allan Poe (1827)

"Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy..." -Spirits of the Dead, Edgar Allan Poe (1827)

"Sit down beside me, Isabel, Here, dearest, where the moonbeam fell Just now so fairy-like and well. Now thou art dress’d for paradise! I am star-stricken with thine eyes! My soul is lolling on thy sighs! Thy hair is lifted by the moon Like flowers by the low breath of June! Sit down, sit down — how came we here? Or is it all but a dream, my dear?" -Fairy-Land, Edgar Allan Poe (1829)

"At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley..." -The Sleeper, Edgar Allan Poe (1831)

"Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down..." -City in the Sea, Edgar Allan Poe (1831)

"These crumbling walls; these tottering arcades; These mouldering plinths; these sad, and blacken’d shafts; These vague entablatures; this broken frieze; These shattered cornices; this wreck; this ruin; These stones, alas! — these grey stones — are they all; All of the great and the colossal left By the corrosive hours to Fate and me?..." -The Coliseum, Edgar Allan Poe (1833)

"Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! How many memories of what radiant hours At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombéd hopes! How many visions of a maiden that is No more — no more upon thy verdant slopes! No more! alas, that magical sad sound Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more..." -To Zante, Edgar Allan Poe (1837)

" "Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him --"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him --that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!" " -The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe (1842)

"By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE—Out of TIME..." -Dream-Land, Edgar Allan Poe (1844)

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before..." -The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (1845)

" “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” ..." -The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (1845)

"I replied: “This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendour is beaming With Hope and in Beauty tonight!— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming, That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”..." -Ulalume, Edgar Allan Poe (1847)

"I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me..." -Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe (1849)

"And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea." -Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe (1849)

"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 her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea." -Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe (1849)

"...In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream." -A Dream Within A Dream, Edgar Allan Poe (1849)