Newly Discovered Unpublished Edgar Allan Poe Manuscript Found

The Earth Times has the story of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe that's surfaced in rural Virginia.

From the story...

A recently discovered version of "Irene" or "The Sleeper," one of Poe's most important poems, has surfaced in rural Virginia. This is the first time the poem has been available for view to anyone outside of the family for whom it was written. It is not only the unpublished and earliest extant version of a poem that Poe considered even better than "The Raven," but it also features new verse never before seen by the public.

The finished poem, "Irene"...

I stand beneath the soaring moon
At midnight in the month of June.
An influence dewy, drowsy, dim,
Is dripping from yon golden rim.
Grey towers are mouldering into rest,
Wrapping the fog around their breast.
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not for the world awake.
The rosemary sleeps upon the grave,
The lily lolls upon the wave,
And [[a]] million cedars to and fro,
Are rocking lullabies as they go
To the lone oak that nodding hangs
Above yon cataract of Serangs.

All Beauty sleeps! — and lo! where lies
With casement open to the skies,
Irene, with her destinies!
Ane hark the sounds so low yet clear,
(Like music of another sphere)
Which steals within the slumberer's ear,
Or so appear — or so appear!
"O lady sweet, how camest thou here?
"Strange are thine eyelids! strange thy dress!
"And strange thy glorious length of tress!
"Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas
"A wonder to our desert trees!
"Some gentle wind hath thought it right
"To open thy window to the night,
"And wanton airs from the tree-top
"Laughingly through the lattice drop,
"And wave this crimson canopy,
"Like a banner o'er thy dreaming eye
"That o'er the floor, and down the wall,
"Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall —
"Then, for thine own all radiant sake,
"Lady, awake! awake! awake!

The lady sleeps! — oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep —
No icy worms about her creep!
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with as calm an eye —
That chamber changed for one more holy,
That bed for one more melancholy!
Far in the forest dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold,
Against whose sounding door she hath thrown
In childhood many an idle stone —
Some tomb which oft hath flung its black
And vampire-wing-like pannels back,
Fluttering triumphant o'er the palls
Of her old family funerals.


Also, in Poe news, Baltimore is planning a year long festival celebrating the melancholic writer.