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In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream- that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar- What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star?
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The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice--although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.
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We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.
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False hope is nicer than no hope at all.
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And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him, who shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.
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He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who ... shall ... persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
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Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
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If you are ever drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations.
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Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly, I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Leonore - For the rare and radiant maiden who the angels name Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.
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True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had haunted my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Of all the sense of hearing acute.
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Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.
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There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.
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Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man.
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You are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
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Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces...
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In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know all were the curse of a fiend...
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A poem in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth.
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It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee;-- And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
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Yes," I said, "for the love of God!
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Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.