(spooky poetry pause)

I actually had a different post planned for the spooky day tomorrow, and it was also about ghosts. But, when I read “The Haunted Palace”, by Edgar Allan Poe, I just knew this was the piece to share.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about ghosts. Perhaps it is just the season messing around with me, or it is my own internal thoughts materializing around me… either way, the ghosts have been coming out to play.

I found this poem within an old book discovered at a book sale. Amongst the chaos of the sale with people rushing this way and that way, there sat an emerald-green gem with gold illumination, and imprinted on the cover it said, “Veri Tas” – Truth. I picked up the well-preserved beauty and felt a connection to the book. I knew I had just picked up a new friend. This collection of poems would be coming home with me, and we would commune together.

One dark evening, I sat down in the corner of my living room. Soft yellow light illuminated my chair at the window, beaconing me to come, sit, pause from the hurry of the day. The night was so dark that when I looked out the window, all I saw was a faded, almost misty, reflection of myself. Then, opening the pages, I talked to my ghosts.

Well, they did not start out as mine per say, but somehow, we lovers of literature and poetry become friends with the poets who came before us. They become our own. This anthology delighted me and captivated my imagination. Captured in the pages of this anthology, I interacted with eternal truths. I struck a vein of gold.

“The Haunted Palace” was one of many brilliant poems I got to read that evening. The imagery and language were in perfect alignment. I continued to re-read the poem until heavy lidded eyes forced me to retreat to sleep. Upon awaking the next morning, dense fog greeted me. Mists moved through the streets, and I could practically see the ghosts coming out to play in the land of the living. So, once again, I picked up this poem – allowing the aesthetic of the day to influence my reading of Poe’s poetry.

I hope you too get to see the “Spirits moving musically” and hear the Echoes singing sweetly.

The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A wingèd odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne where, sitting,
Porphyrogene!
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.