The poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe, with original memoir. Illustrated by F. R. Pickersgill, R.A., John Tenniel, Birket Foster, Felix Darlay [and others]

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me-who knows how?To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent streamThe champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!
0, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold.and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!
Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines-yet no less a poet than
Shelley is their author. Their warm yet delicate and ethereal imagination
will be appreciated by all-but by none so thoroughly as by him who has
himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, to bathe in the aromatic
air of a southern midsummer night.
One of the finest poems by'Willis —the very best, in my opinion, which
he has ever written —has, no doubt, through this same defect of undue
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