Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.

Twere better than the dull realityOf waking life to him whose heart shall be,And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,A chaos of deep passion from his birth!

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?

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.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door- Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;- This it is, and nothing more.

It is a happiness to wonder;—it is a happiness to dream

Never its mysteries are exposedTo the weak human eye unclosed

A mystery, and a dream, should my early life seem.

I have not always been as now:The fever'd diadem on my brow I claim'd and won unsurprisingly-Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Caeser-this is me? The heritage of a kindly mind,And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.