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.” Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom— And conquered her scruples and gloom; And we passed to the end of the vista— But were stopped by the door of a tomb— By the door of a legended tomb:— And I said—“What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?” She replied—“Ulalume—Ulalume— ’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!” Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crispèd and sere— As the leaves that were withering and sere— And I cried—“It was surely October On _this_ very night of last year, That I journeyed—I journeyed down here!— That I brought a dread burden down here— On this night, of all nights in the year, Ah, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber— This misty mid region of Weir:— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber— This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.” 1847. TO HELEN I saw thee once—once only—years ago: I must not say _how_ many—but _not_ many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, Upon the upturned faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe— Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death— Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses, And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!