A Dark Ride
I remember the first poem that spoke to me. My dad had taken me to the library at UCI. Whether he needed something for work or I needed something for school, I can’t recall. Nor can I recall if I was specifically looking for works by Edgar Allan Poe, or if I’d simply happened upon them. I’d become separated from my father in the tall stacks when I discovered the myriad Poe compilations. I knew who he was; I’d repeatedly checked out a slender hardcover edition of The Tell-Tale Heart from my elementary school library. I realized that was a small morsel compared to the feast of stories and poems laid out before me. I chose a volume and sat down in the aisle, carefully thumbed through it as though I’d discovered a buried treasure, until a short poem reached up to me from the page.
Alone
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were-I have not seen
As others saw-I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov’d I lov’d alone.
Then-in my childhood-in the dawn
Of a most stormy life-was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold-
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by-
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Yep, that should have been my clue that this was going to be a dark ride.