{
 "id": "edgar-allan-poe/to-helen-2",
 "title": "To Helen",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Allan Poe",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-allan-poe",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1848,
  "venue": "Union Magazine (November 1848, issued in October), as “To ———”",
  "note": "Addressed to Sarah Helen Whitman, from a manuscript Poe sent Bayard Taylor on 15 June 1848. The magazine's text omits two lines that Griswold's Works (1850) prints; Griswold's is Mabbott's copy-text.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.eapoe.org/works/info/pp091.htm"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-allan-poe_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2151",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Acrostic",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elizabeth_(Poe)",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Serenade_(Poe)",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00unkngoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924019520810",
   "https://archive.org/details/jstor-2915307"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": null,
    "was": "To Helen45",
    "now": "To Helen",
    "why": "A Standard Ebooks endnote marker (<a epub:type=\"noteref\">) carried into the text by extraction; not present on the printed page.",
    "checked_against": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2151",
    "date": "2026-08-12",
    "field": "title"
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 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 66,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw thee once⁠—once only⁠—years ago:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must not say how many⁠—but not many.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was a July midnight; and from out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the upturn’d faces of a thousand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gave out, in return for the love-light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clad all in white, upon a violet bank",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on thine own, upturn’d⁠—alas, in sorrow!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That bade me pause before that garden-gate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save only thee and me⁠—(O Heaven!⁠—O God!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save only thee and me. I paused⁠—I looked⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in an instant all things disappeared.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pearly lustre of the moon went out:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mossy banks and the meandering paths,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The happy flowers and the repining trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were seen no more: the very roses’ odors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Died in the arms of the adoring airs.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All⁠—all expired save thee⁠—save less than thou:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save only the divine light in thine eyes⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw but them⁠—they were the world to me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw but them⁠—saw only them for hours⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw only them until the moon went down.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How silently serene a sea of pride!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How daring an ambition! yet how deep⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How fathomless a capacity for love!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They would not go⁠—they never yet have gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They follow me⁠—they lead me through the years.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are my ministers⁠—yet I their slave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their office is to illumine and enkindle⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My duty, to be saved by their bright light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And purified in their electric fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sanctified in their elysian fire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And are far up in Heaven⁠—the stars I kneel to",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the sad, silent watches of my night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While even in the meridian glare of day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see them still⁠—two sweetly scintillant",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}