To One In Paradise
Edgar Allan Poe
Thou
wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine:
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
5
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from the Future cries,
10
�On! on!�-but o�er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast.
For
alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o�er!
15
No more-no more-no more-
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar.
20
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy gray eye glances,
And where they footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
25
By what eternal streams.
Questions
1.) What is the significance of line 16?
2.) How do the examples written in lines 17-20 contribute
to the overall effect of the poem?
3.) What type of literary devices can be found in the last two
lines of the poem? Explain the last two lines.
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Analysis
The
speaker in the poem �To One in Paradise� is a person who has lost a loved
one. He or she is in despair because life simply does not exist
without the life of the love. The
first line describes the poem perfectly: �Thou wast all that to me, love.�
The speaker has no drive to live now that the focus of his life is gone.
The audience of the poem is the lost lover, thus giving the poem the
element of apostrophe. The
purpose of the poem is to convince the lost love that the speaker is unable to
live without their influence.
The
first stanza compares life with the love, and life after the love�s departure.
The speaker�s life was perfectly beautiful, filled with blossoming
buds. A number of metaphors are
used in this stanza to emphasize how life once was.
Life was once �a green isle in the sea� filled with �fairy fruits
and flowers.� The reference to
the fruits and flowers alludes to the sweetness in life.
The adjective fairy gives a dreamlike description to the reader.
The second stanza
is a regretful lament. The speaker
continues to compare his love through metaphors calling them a dream and a
�starry Hope.� However, the
speaker also states that these items were so ephemeral, especially to the fact
that they have died out while the speaker has lived.
Line 13 describes the spirit, which can also be interpreted as the
speaker�s will to live. This is
an example of metonymy because the speaker is referring to their will to live
and not just the spirit itself. The speaker no longer feels a strong drive to contribute to
society. The orator has a strong
desire to silence his tongue, stay in bed, and indulge in misery.
In the third stanza, the use of
exclamation marks emphasizes the pain the speaker is enduring.
Life is over now that the love and light of life is gone.
Line 16 implies that the speaker is almost sobbing as the words �no
more� are cried out. They are
begging to be relieved of this pain of having to live this empty, meaningless
life alone. The following lines
that are in parentheses imply that the strength of the words written in lines
14-16 are enough to move mountains. The
thunder-blasted tree, which is supposed to be dead, will bloom upon these words.
The eagle that could not and would not fly will �soar.�
These examples once again emphasize the everlasting love the speaker
feels towards their love.
The
last stanza reiterates how much the speaker still constantly thinks of their
love. Their days fly by in a daze
where all they can think and dream about is where their love could be.
The last two lines of the poem sets the setting for the loved one to be
in paradise. The adjectives
�ethereal� in line 25 and �eternal� in line 26 are used to give the
reader the sense of heavenly departure. The loved one is now dancing a heavenly dance in the land of
immortality. The phrase �eternal
streams� is not meant to be taken literally.
It is a synecdoche because the speaker is really referring to a heavenly
land where peace and laughter are in eternity.
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