If you like poetry, surely you know the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. He is one of the authors that is studied and read the most, despite his age.
For this reason, on this occasion we wanted to make a compilation of some of the best poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Do you want to take a look and see if we agree with you or if we discover you a new author?
Who was Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was a writer, poet, journalist, and critic. He was born in Boston, United States, in 1809, and died in Baltimore, in 1849. He is recognized as one of the best authors of short stories, gothic novels, and horror, but he actually wrote in multiple genres.
His life was not very pleasant, especially since when he was still a child he had to live through the death of his parents. A wealthy Richmond couple took him in, but they didn’t formalize him as an adoption. He enrolled in the University of Virginia but only did a year since, after that, he enlisted in the army (he didn’t stay long).
Edgar Allan Poe ‘s first book was a book of poems titled Tamerlane and Other Poems , which he published in 1827.
Because he needed money, he decided to work writing in newspapers, in which he published stories, or literary criticism. This work was what propelled him to be known and gave him the notoriety he needed to continue with that career.
It was in 1845 when he published the most famous poem and one that most attracted the public to his pen, The Raven. However, the truth is that he has left us a fairly broad literary legacy in terms of stories (which we can find in different genres from macabre, detective, science fiction, satirical…); novels, poetry, essays, reviews…
On a personal level, Edgar Allan Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was 13 years old at the time, in 1835. However, she passed away from tuberculosis in 1847.
Two years later, in 1849, he too died, although the causes are not well known.
The best poems of Edgar Allan Poe
There are many poems by Edgar Allan Poe, because he was very prolific in that sense. But the truth is that, of all of them, there are some that stand out more than others.
Here we collect some of them.
The Raven
I
On a scary, restless night
reread an ancient tome
when i thought i heard
a strange noise, suddenly
as if someone gently touched
a mi puerta: «The impertinent visit
it is, I said and nothing more ».
yl
oh! I remember very well; it was in winter
and impatient measured the eternal time
tired of searching
in books the beneficent calm
to the pain of my dead Leonora
who dwells with the angels now
for ever and ever!
III
I felt the silky and crackling and springy
brushing of the curtains, a fantastic
terrifying like never before
there was sense and I wanted that noise
explaining, my oppressed spirit
calm at last: «A lost traveler
it is, I said and nothing else ».
IV
Already feeling calmer: «Sir
I exclaimed, oh lady, beg you I want
please excuse
but my attention was not wide awake
and your call was so uncertain…»
I then opened the door wide:
nothing more darkness
IN
I look into space, I explore the darkness
and then I feel that my mind populates
mob of ideas which
no other mortal had them before
and listen with yearning ears
«Leonora» some whispering voices
whisper no more
WE
I return to my room with a secret dread
and listen to the pale and restless
stronger hit;
“Something, I tell myself, knocks on my window,
understand I want the arcane sign
and calm this superhuman anguish »:
the wind and nothing else!
ARE YOU COMING
And the window opened: wallowing
I then saw a raven worshiping
like a bird of another age;
without further ceremony he entered my rooms
with stately gesture and black wings
and on a bust, on the lintel, of Pallas
perched and nothing else.
VIII
I look at the black bird, smiling
before his serious and serious continent
and I start to talk to him,
not without a hint of ironic intent:
“Oh raven, oh venerable anachronistic bird,
what is your name in the plutonic region? »
The raven said: “Never”.
IX
In this case, the grotesque and rare pair
I was amazed to hear so clearly
such a name to pronounce
and I must confess that I was scared
Well, before nobody, I think, had the pleasure
of a raven to see, perched on a bust
with such a name: “Never”.
X
As if I had poured in that accent
the soul, the bird fell silent and not for a moment
the feathers moved already,
“Others of me have fled and it catches up with me
that he will leave tomorrow without delay
how hope has abandoned me »;
said the raven: “Never! »
XI
A response to listening so clear
I told myself, not without secret concern,
“This is nothing more.
How much he learned from an unfortunate master,
whom fate has persecuted tenaciously
and for only refrain he has kept
that never, never! »
XII
I rolled my seat until I was facing
of the door, of the bust and of the seer
raven and then already
reclining on the soft silk
I sank into fantastic dreams,
always thinking what to say
that never, never
XIII
I stayed like that for a long time
that strange ominous bird
endlessly looking,
he occupied the velvet divan
do together we sit and in my mourning
I thought that Ella, never on this floor
I would occupy it more.
XIV
Then it seemed to me the dense air
with the scent of burning incense
of an invisible altar;
and I hear fervent voices repeat:
“Forget Leonor, drink the nepenthes
drink oblivion in its lethal sources »;
said the raven: “Never! »
XV
«Prophet, I said, augur of other ages
that threw the black storms
here for my bad,
guest of this abode of sadness,
Say, dark spawn of the dark night,
if there will be a balm at last to my bitterness »:
said the raven: “Never! »
XVI
«Prophet, I said, or devil, ill-fated raven
For God, for me, for my bitter pain,
by your fatal power
dime and some see of Leonora
I will see again in the eternal dawn
where happy with the cherubs dwells »;
said the raven: “Never! »
XVII
“Let such a word be the last
retorna a la plutonica rivera»
I screamed: “Don’t come back anymore,
don’t leave a trace, not a feather
and my spirit wrapped in dense mist
finally free the weight that overwhelms you! »
said the raven: “Never! »
xvii
And the motionless crow, funereal and grim
Always follow Pallas on the bust
and under my lantern,
casts a dingy stain on the carpet
and his demon gaze amazes…
Oh! My mourning soul from its shadow
will be released? Never!
(Translation by Carlos Arturo Torres)
Lenore
Oh! The golden cup is broken! its essence disappeared
He went; he went! He went; he went!
Ring, ring bells, with mournful echoes,
That an immaculate soul floats on the river Styx.
And you, Guy de Vere, what have you made of your tears?
Ah, let them run!
Look, the narrow coffin that encloses your Lenore;
Listen to the funeral songs that the friar sings. Why did he die young?
Come to his side, come.
Let the death song be said
She was worthy to rule;
A funeral song to the one who lies inert,
Why did he die so young?
Cursed are those who loved in her only
the shapes of women,
Well, their native haughtiness imposed so much on you,
You let it die, when the fatal breach
It rested on his temple.
Who opens the rituals? Who will sing the Requiem?
I want to know, who?
You wretches with poisonous tongues
And basilisk eyes? They killed the beautiful one,
How beautiful it was!
Are we careful to sing? You sing at bad times
The Sabbath sing;
May his solemn accent rise to the lofty throne
Like a bitter sob that does not arouse anger
In which he sleeps in peace.
She, the beautiful, gentle Lenore,
He took flight at his first dawn;
She, your girlfriend, in deep loneliness
Orphan left you!
She, grace itself, now rests
In rigid stillness; in her hair
There is still life; more in his beautiful eyes
There is no life, no, no, no!
Behind! my heart beats fast
And in happy rhythm. Behind! I do not want
funeral songs
Because it’s useless now.
I will tend the flight and to the celestial space
I will throw myself into your noble company.
I’m going with you, my soul, yes, my soul!
And a pean I will sing to you!
Silence the bells! Its mournful echoes
Maybe they do it wrong.
Do not disturb the beatitude of a soul with your voices
That wanders over the world with mysterious calm
and in full freedom.
Respect for the soul that the earth ties
Triumphant unleashed;
That now luminous floating in the abyss
See friends and opposites; what of hell itself
into the sky he launched.
If the glass shattered, your eternal essence free
It will, it will!
be quiet, be quiet bells with mournful accents,
that his immaculate soul of heaven on the borders
Playing is!
Alone
Since the time of my childhood I have not been
as others were, I have not seen
as others saw, I could not bring
my passions of a simple spring.
From the same source I have not taken
my regret, I could not wake up
my heart to jubilation with the same tone;
And everything I loved, I loved Alone.
Then -in my childhood- at dawn
from the most stormy life, he took out
from every depth of good and bad
the mystery that still binds me:
From the torrent, or the source,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
Of the sun that revolved around me
in its autumn dyed with gold,
of lightning in the sky
when it flew past me,
Of thunder and storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon before my sight.
the sleeper
It was midnight, in June, lukewarm, dark.
I was under a ray of the mystic moon,
that of its white disc like an enchantment
It poured over the valley a sleepy vapor.
The fragrant rosemary dozed in the tombs,
And to the lake the dying lily leaned,
And wrapped in the mist in the watery garment,
The ruins rested in ancient repose.
Behold! Also the lake like Lethe,
Doze in the shadows with a slow nod,
And he doesn’t want to wake up from conscious torpor
For the world around languidly dying
Sleep all beauty and see where it rests
Irene, sweetly, in delightful calm.
With the window open to the serene skies,
Of clear luminaries and full mysteries.
Oh, my gracious lady, don’t you feel terrified?
Why is your window open like this at night?
The playful airs from the leafy forest,
Laughing and lascivious in a noisy crowd
They flood your room and shake the curtain
From the bed where your beautiful head rests,
On the beautiful eyes with copious lashes,
After which the soul sleeps in strange regions,
Like gloomy ghosts, by the dream and the walls
The shadows of dark profiles slide.
Oh, my gracious lady, don’t you fear?
Tell me, what is the powerful charm of your reverie?
You must have come from the far seas
To this beautiful garden of secular trunks.
Strange are, woman, your paleness, your suit,
And from your long braids the floating homage;
But even stranger is the solemn silence
In which you wrap your mysterious and perennial dream.
The gentle lady sleeps. Sleep for the world!
Everything everlasting has to be deep.
Heaven has protected him under his sweet mantle,
Bartering this room for another that is holier,
And for another sadder, the bed in which he rests.
I pray to the Lord, that with a merciful hand,
I let her rest with undisturbed sleep,
While the deceased parade by his side.
She sleeps, my love. Oh, my soul desires you
That just as it is eternal, deep the dream is;
Let the vile worms creep softly
Around his hands and around his forehead;
That in the distant jungle, gloomy and centuries old,
They raise him a high grave quiet and lonely
Where they float to the wind, haughty and triumphant,
From his illustrious family the funeral cloths;
A distant grave, at whose strong gate
She threw stones, as a girl, without fear of death,
And from whose hard bronze no more sounds will start,
Nor the mournful echoes of such sad mansions
How sad to imagine poor daughter of sin.
That fateful sound at the ripped door,
And that perhaps with joy it would resound in your ear,
of terrifying death was the sad moan!
Annabel Lee
This is the last of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems, published after his death.
Many years ago
in a kingdom by the sea
lived a maiden you may know
named Annabel Lee.
And this maiden lived without another thought
to love me and be loved by me.
we were both children
in this kingdom by the sea
but we loved with a love that was more than love
me and my annabel lee
with love than the winged seraphs of heaven
they envied her and me.
And for this reason, long ago,
in this kingdom by the sea
a wind blew from a cloud
that chilled my love Annabel Lee.
And their highborn relatives came
and they took her away from me
to lock her in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, discontented in heaven,
they envied her and me.
Yes! For this reason (as everyone knows
in this kingdom by the sea)
the wind came out of the cloud at night
para helar y matar a mi Annabel Lee.
But our love was so much stronger
than that of those older
or wiser than us.
And not even the angels up in the sky
nor the demons under the sea
They will never be able to separate my soul from the soul
from Hermosa Annabel Lee.
Well the moon never shines without bringing me dreams
from Hermosa Annabel Lee
and the stars never shine without me feeling the radiant eyes
from Hermosa Annabel Lee
And when the night tide comes I lie right next to
of my beloved -my beloved- my life and my fiancee
in his grave there by the sea
In his grave by the noisy sea.
