Shadow.'a Parable Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB B BCBDEFGH IAJAKLMGAACBNB CBBODPABBQBRBSTUBBVW XBUDAYOJZCA2CBB2ABJA C2YBYD2BME2BGAF2BCBB GBBBQOG2BBBABACBBOGD XYO| Yea though I walk through the valley of the | A |
| Shadow | B |
| - | |
| 'Psalm of David' | B |
| - | |
| Ye who read are still among the living but I who write | B |
| shall have long since gone my way into the region of | C |
| shadows For indeed strange things shall happen and secret | B |
| things be known and many centuries shall pass away ere | D |
| these memorials be seen of men And when seen there will | E |
| be some to disbelieve and some to doubt and yet a few who | F |
| will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven | G |
| with a stylus of iron | H |
| - | |
| The year had been a year of terror and of feeling more | I |
| intense than terror for which there is no name upon the | A |
| earth For many prodigies and signs had taken place and far | J |
| and wide over sea and land the black wings of the | A |
| Pestilence were spread abroad To those nevertheless | K |
| cunning in the stars it was not unknown that the heavens | L |
| wore an aspect of ill and to me the Greek Oinos among | M |
| others it was evident that now had arrived the alternation | G |
| of that seven hundred and ninety fourth year when at the | A |
| entrance of Aries the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the | A |
| red ring of the terrible Saturnus The peculiar spirit of | C |
| the skies if I mistake not greatly made itself manifest | B |
| not only in the physical orb of the earth but in the souls | N |
| imaginations and meditations of mankind | B |
| - | |
| Over some flasks of the red Chian wine within the walls of | C |
| a noble hall in a dim city called Ptolemais we sat at | B |
| night a company of seven And to our chamber there was no | B |
| entrance save by a lofty door of brass and the door was | O |
| fashioned by the artisan Corinnos and being of rare | D |
| workmanship was fastened from within Black draperies | P |
| likewise in the gloomy room shut out from our view the | A |
| moon the lurid stars and the peopleless streets but | B |
| the boding and the memory of Evil they would not be so | B |
| excluded There were things around us and about of which I | Q |
| can render no distinct account things material and | B |
| spiritual heaviness in the atmosphere a sense | R |
| of suffocation anxiety and above all that | B |
| terrible state of existence which the nervous experience | S |
| when the senses are keenly living and awake and meanwhile | T |
| the powers of thought lie dormant A dead weight hung upon | U |
| us It hung upon our limbs upon the household | B |
| furniture upon the goblets from which we drank and | B |
| all things were depressed and borne down thereby all | V |
| things save only the flames of the seven iron lamps which | W |
| illumined our revel Uprearing themselves in tall slender | X |
| lines of light they thus remained burning all pallid and | B |
| motionless and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon | U |
| the round table of ebony at which we sat each of us there | D |
| assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance and the | A |
| unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions Yet we | Y |
| laughed and were merry in our proper way which was | O |
| hysterical and sang the songs of Anacreon which are | J |
| madness and drank deeply although the purple wine | Z |
| reminded us of blood For there was yet another tenant of | C |
| our chamber in the person of young Zoilus Dead and at full | A2 |
| length he lay enshrouded the genius and the demon of | C |
| the scene Alas he bore no portion in our mirth save that | B |
| his countenance distorted with the plague and his eyes in | B2 |
| which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the | A |
| pestilence seemed to take such an interest in our merriment | B |
| as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are | J |
| to die But although I Oinos felt that the eyes of the | A |
| departed were upon me still I forced myself not to perceive | C2 |
| the bitterness of their expression and gazing down steadily | Y |
| into the depths of the ebony mirror sang with a loud and | B |
| sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teos But gradually | Y |
| my songs they ceased and their echoes rolling afar off | D2 |
| among the sable draperies of the chamber became weak and | B |
| undistinguishable and so faded away And lo from among | M |
| those sable draperies where the sounds of the song | E2 |
| departed there came forth a dark and undefiled | B |
| shadow a shadow such as the moon when low in heaven | G |
| might fashion from the figure of a man but it was the | A |
| shadow neither of man nor of God nor of any familiar thing | F2 |
| And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room it at | B |
| length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of | C |
| brass But the shadow was vague and formless and | B |
| indefinite and was the shadow neither of man nor God | B |
| neither God of Greece nor God of Chaldaea nor any Egyptian | G |
| God And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway and | B |
| under the arch of the entablature of the door and moved not | B |
| nor spoke any word but there became stationary and | B |
| remained And the door whereupon the shadow rested was if I | Q |
| remember aright over against the feet of the young Zoilus | O |
| enshrouded But we the seven there assembled having seen | G2 |
| the shadow as it came out from among the draperies dared | B |
| not steadily behold it but cast down our eyes and gazed | B |
| continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony And at | B |
| length I Oinos speaking some low words demanded of the | A |
| shadow its dwelling and its appellation And the shadow | B |
| answered I am SHADOW and my dwelling is near to the | A |
| Catacombs of Ptolemais and hard by those dim plains of | C |
| Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal And | B |
| then did we the seven start from our seats in horror and | B |
| stand trembling and shuddering and aghast for the tones | O |
| in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one | G |
| being but of a multitude of beings and varying in their | D |
| cadences from syllable to syllable fell duskily upon our | X |
| ears in the well remembered and familiar accents of many | Y |
| thousand departed friends | O |
Edgar Allan Poe
(1)
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