by Poe · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A grateful blank-verse tribute to Marie Louise Shew, whose presence restores the despairing speaker’s faith in Truth, Virtue and Humanity, her words echoing the divine ‘Let there be light’. Themes of love, gratitude, faith and the angelic beloved.
Connections
Topoi: Love as Religion Motifs: Eyes and Sight Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Faith, Wonder and Gratitude Forms & Genres: Blank Verse Historical References: Bible
Testo integrale / Full text
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—
Of all to whom thine absence is the night—
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope—for life—ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth—in Virtue—in Humanity—
Of all who, on Despair’s unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most—whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember
The truest—the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him—
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel’s.
1847.