Prologue (Ligiea)

Young Poe:

In the science of the mind there is no point

more thrilling than to notice which I never noticed in schools that in our endeavors

to recall to memory something long-forgotten

we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance

without being in the end able to remember

Under the intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes

I have felt the full knowledge

and force of their expression

and yet been unable to possess it

and have felt it leave me as so many other things have left

the letter half-read, the bottle half-drunk

finding in the commonest objects

of the universe a circle of analogies

of metaphors for that expression

which has been willfully withheld from me

the access to the inner soul denied

Eyes blazed with a too-glorious effulgence

pale fingers transparent, waxen, the hue of the grave

Blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled

and sunk impetuously with the tides of deep emotion

and I saw that she must die

that she was wresting with the dark shadow

Her stern nature had impressed me

with the belief that, to her

death would come without its terrors

but not so

I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle

I would have soothed

I would have reasoned

But she was amid the most convulsive of writhings

Oh, pitiful soul

Her voice more gentle

more low, and yet her words grew wilder of meaning

I reeled, entranced, to a melody more than mortal

She loved me, no doubt

and in her bosom

love reigned as no ordinary passion

But in death only was I impressed

with the intensity of her affection

Her more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry

How had I deserved to be so blessed

and then cursed with the removal of my beloved

upon the hour of her most delirious musings

In her more than womanly abandonment to a love

all unmerited and unworthily bestowed

I came to realize the principle of her longing

It was a yearning for life

an eager, intense desire for life

which was now fleeing so rapidly away

as she returned solemnly to her bed of death

And I had no utterance capable of expressing it

except to say

Man doth not yield to the angels

nor unto death utterly

save only through the weakness of his feeble will

I became wild with the excitement

of an immoderate does of opium

I saw her raising wine to her lips

or may have dreamed that I saw fall within a goblet

as if from some invisible spring

in the atmosphere of the room

three of four large drops

of a brilliant and ruby-colored fluid

Falling

While Ligeia lay in her bed of ebony

the bed of death

with mine eyes riveted upon her body

Then came a moan

a sob low and gentle but once

I listened in superstitious terror but heard it not again

I strained vision to see any motion in the corpse

but here was not the slightest perceptible

Yet I had heard the noise

and my whole soul was awakened within me

The red liquid fell and I thought, Ligeia lives

and I felt my brain reel

my heart cease to beat

and my limbs go rigid where I sat

In extremity of horror

I heard a vague sound issuing from the region of the bed

Rushing to her I saw

I distinctly saw

a tremor upon her lips

I sprang to my feet and chafed

and bathed the temples and hands but in vain

all color fled

all pulsation ceased

Her lips resumed the expression of the dead

the icy hue, the sunken outline

and all the loathsome peculiarities of that

which for many days has been the tenant of the tomb

And again I sank into visions of Ligeia

And again I heard a low sob

As I looked she seemed to grow taller

What inexpressible madness seized me with that thought?

I ran to touch her

Her head fell, and her clothing crumbled

and there streamed forth huge masses of long disheveled hair

It was blacker

than the raven wings of midnight