Edgar Allan Poe: "...My Days Have Been A Dream"

Today marks the 209th anniversary of the birth of the American writer, Edgar Allan Poe.  He was born in Boston,  spent his lifetime living and working between the coastal cities of Boston and Charleston, and died and buried in Baltimore in 1849 wrapped in the mystery and tragedy that surrounded him during much of his life.  I don't recall when Poe's work first entered my life but I was reading him before high school. He's been a source of great enjoyment in my family. His many associations with Baltimore made him even more popular with English teachers in Maryland. My thanks to all of them for remembering a favorite son.

Poe and I do share a bit of history. He was stationed at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina for about a year beginning in 1827. The fort and island are the setting for his short story, The Gold Bug. During my career, I spent several weeks walking the damp tunnels, the grassy terreplein, and studying the character of this historic fort and those who garrisoned it over the centuries. I watched the sun rise and set over its walls, and stood at the gun emplacements at midnight listening to the invisible surf breaking on the beach or watching ship traffic moving in and out of Charleston harbor. For all I know, Poe's shadow may have watched my every move.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

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.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

There is magic about deep historic places, and it is magnified by darkness, fog, or a rich drizzle. Judging by the vast body of his work, I'd say Poe enjoyed his duty station at Fort Moultrie. His biographers would tell us otherwise. Unrest, tension and unhappiness seemed to follow him everywhere. Out of his personal darkness came a magic that blossomed into a timeless contribution to Western literature.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

public domain photograph by Edwin H. Manchester taken November 9, 1848 in Providence, Rhode Island, Library of Congress, Famous People Collection

Text:

eapoe.org
poetryfoundation.org