by Poe · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A sonnet attacking science as a vulture that preys on the poet’s heart, banishing the mythological imagination (Diana, the Naiad, the Hamadryad) and dull realities against poetic vision.
Connections
Motifs: Time, Nature, Stars, Dreams Themes & Concepts: Imagination, Critique of Progress, Artist and Society, Nature vs Civilization, Beauty Forms & Genres: Sonnet Historical References: Greek Mythology
Testo integrale / Full text
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thous not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?