ULALUME

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd and sear,
The leaves they were withering and sear;
It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir:
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic
Of cypress I roamed with my Soul
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

5

10

They were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll,

15

As the lavas that restlessly roll

In the ultimate climes of the pole,

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

20

Our talk had been serious and sober,

But our thoughts they were palsied and sear,
Our memories were treacherous and sear,

For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year, (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)

25

We noted not the dim lake of Auber

(Though once we had journeyed down here),

Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn,
As the star-dials hinted of morn,
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous luster was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn,
Astarte's bediamonded crescent

Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs,
She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies,
To the Lethean peace of the skies:
Come up, in despite of the Lion,

To shine on us with her bright eyes:
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said "Sadly this star I mistrust,
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!

Oh, fly! — let us fly! for we must."