To One in Paradise
To One in Paradise - context Summary
Published 1834; Personal Loss
Published in 1834, Poe’s "To One in Paradise" frames a speaker’s intense grief for a lost, idealized lover. The poem presents the beloved as a private paradise—a sacred, life-giving presence—whose removal leaves the speaker bereft and motionless. Hopes for the future persist but are overshadowed by an inescapable past; the beloved is carried away into a marriage and social standing that separates her from the speaker. Critics link the poem to Poe’s sorrow over Elmira Royster Shelton, and that sense of irrevocable loss shapes its tone.
Read Complete AnalysesThou wast that all to me, love, for which my soul did pine — a green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine, all wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, and all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise but to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, “On! on!” — but o’er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! Alas! with me the light of Life is o’er! “No more, no more, no more”, (Such language holds the solemn sea to the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder - blasted tree, or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, and all my nightly dreams are where thy dark eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams - in what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams! Alas! For that accursed time they bore thee o’er the billow, from love to titled age and crime, and an unholy pillow! From me, and from our misty clime, where weeps the silver willow!
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