by Poe · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A love lyric: amid the woes of his earthly path the speaker finds solace in the memory of the beloved, likened to a serene enchanted isle in a stormy sea. Themes of love, consolation and melancholy.
Connections
Topoi: Unattainable Beloved Motifs: Love, Sea, Rose Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Melancholy Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Beloved! amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path—
(Drear path, alas! where grows
Not even one lonely rose)—
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee, and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.
And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea—
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storms—but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o’er that one bright island smile.
1845.