To Edgar A. Poe

By Sarah Helen Whitman (1803–1878)

(Died October 7, 1849)

WHEN first I looked into thy glorious eyes,

And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained,

Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies

Of autumn nights without a shadow stained,

I stood as one whom some strange dream enthralls;

For, far away in some lost life divine,

Some land which every glorious dream recalls,

A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine.

Even now, though death has veiled their starry light,

And closed their lids in his relentless night,—

As some strange dream, remembered in a dream,

Again I see, in sleep, their tender beam;

Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill,

Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and still.