Imitation
Edgar Allan Poe · 1845
Public domain
From The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Published before 1850. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride--
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my wordly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.