The Valley of Unrest
The Valley of Unrest - context Summary
Published in 1845 Collection
Published in 1845 in The Raven and Other Poems, Poe’s The Valley of Unrest exemplifies his Gothic preoccupations. It imagines a deserted dell where nature has become agitated around a nameless grave, using restless trees, clouds, and weeping flowers to evoke mourning and decay. The poem’s eerie, musical language and focus on death align it with the darker themes that made Poe notable in mid‑19th‑century American verse. Readers should approach it as a mood piece and symbolic landscape rather than a conventional narrative.
Read Complete AnalysesOnce it smiled a silent dell where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, trusting to the mild-eyed stars, nightly, from their azure towers, to keep watch above the flowers, in the midst of which all day the red sun-light lazily lay, now each visitor shall confess the sad valley’s restlessness. Nothing there is motionless — nothing save the airs that brood over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees that palpitate like the chill seas around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven that rustle through the unquiet Heaven unceasingly, from morn till even, over the violets there that lie in myriad types of the human eye — over the lilies that wave and weep above a nameless grave! They wave: From out their fragrant tops eternal dews come down in drops. They weep: From off their delicate stems perennial tears descend in gems.
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