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Fairy-Land

by Edgar Allan Poe

Dim vales--and shadowy floods--

And cloudy-looking woods,

Whose forms we can't discover

For the tears that drip all over

Huge moons there wax and wane--

Again--again--again--

Every moment of the night--

Forever changing places--

And they put out the star-light

With the breath from their pale faces.

About twelve by the moon-dial,

One more filmy than the rest

(A kind which, upon trial,

They have found to be the best)

Comes down--still down--and down,

With its centre on the crown

Of a mountain's eminence,

While its wide circumference

In easy drapery falls

Over hamlets, over halls,

Wherever they may be--

O'er the strange woods--o'er the sea--

Over spirits on the wing--

Over every drowsy thing--

And buries them up quite

In a labyrinth of light--

And then, how deep!--O, deep!

Is the passion of their sleep.

In the morning they arise,

And their moony covering

Is soaring in the skies,

With the tempests as they toss,

Like-almost anything--

Or a yellow Albatross.

They use that moon no more

For the same end as before--

Videlicet a tent--

Which I think extravagant:

Its atomies, however,

Into a shower dissever,

Of which those butterflies,

Of Earth, who seek the skies,

And so come down again

(Never-contented things!)

Have brought a specimen

Upon their quivering wings.