{
 "id": "edgar-allan-poe/to-marie-louise",
 "title": "To Marie Louise",
 "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": "Columbian Magazine (March 1848), as “To ———”",
  "note": "The second of Poe's two poems to Marie Louise Shew. The manuscript, of December 1847 or January 1848, is headed “To Marie Louise”; the magazine printed it untitled.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.eapoe.org/works/info/pp088.htm"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 27,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Not long ago, the writer of these lines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the mad pride of intellectuality,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Maintained “the power of words”⁠—denied that ever",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thought arose within the human brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now, as if in mockery of that boast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two words⁠—two foreign soft dissyllables⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Italian tones, made only to be murmured",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By angels dreaming in the moonlit “dew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Richer, far wider, far diviner visions",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Who has “the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures”)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can not write⁠—I can not speak or think⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas, I can not feel; for ’tis not feeling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This standing motionless upon the golden",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thrilling as I see, upon the right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the left, and all the way along,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid empurpled vapors, far away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where the prospect terminates⁠—thee only!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}