The Happiest Day - Edgar Allan Poe

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Untitled, Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827
Untitled
by Edgar Allan Poe

The happiest day — the happiest hour
   My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride, and power,
   I feel hath flown.

Of power! said I? yes! such I ween
   But they have vanish'd long alas!
The visions of my youth have been —
   But let them pass.

And, pride, what have I now with thee?
   Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me —
   Be still my spirit.

The happiest day — the happiest hour
   Mine eyes shall see — have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
   I feel — have been:

But were that hope of pride and power
   Now offer'd, with the pain
Ev'n then I felt — that brightest hour
   I would not live again:

For on its wing wall dark alloy
   And as it flutter'd — fell
An essence — powerful to destroy
   A soul that knew it well.

-The End-

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"[The Happiest Day]", North American (Baltimore), Sept. 15, 1827
(Original.)
by Edgar Allan Poe

The happiest day — the happiest hour,
My sear'd and blighted heart has known,
The brightest glance of pride and power

I feel hath flown —

Of power, said I? Yes, such I ween —
But it has vanish'd — long alas!
The visions of my youth have been —

But let them pass. —

And pride! what have I now with thee?
Another brow may e'en inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me:

Be still my spirit.

The smile of love — soft friendship's charm —
Bright hope itself has fled at last,
'T will ne'er again my bosom warm—

'Tis ever past.

The happiest day, — the happiest hour,
Mine eyes shall see, — have ever seen, —
The brightest glance of pride and power,

I feel has been. W. H. P.

-The End-

["W. H. P." are the initials of Edgar's brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, usually called Henry. As this version of the poem appeared only a few months after the abortive publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), it is presumed that they are a revision of Edgar's verses rather than the other way around. T. O Mabbott felt that the rather tepid value of the modifications suggests that they were made by Henry, though perhaps with Edgar's approval.]

[A photographic facsimile of this printing was included by Hervey Allen and T. O. Mabbott in Poe's Brother, New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926, p. 43.]

[The full title of the newspaper was North American, or Weekly Journal of Politics, Science and Literature. ] (notes from: http://www.eapoe.org/)

-The End-