physical, and mathematical science? I saw not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions
of Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign
myself, with a childlike confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation
at which I was most busily occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a triumphwith
how vivid a delight with how much of all that is ethereal in hopedid I feel, as she bent over
me in studies but little sought but less knownthat delicious vista by slow degrees expanding before
me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might at length pass onward to the goal of a
wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden!
How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some years, I beheld my well-grounded
expectations take wings to themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted.
Her presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism
in which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew
duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over
which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a tootoo glorious effulgence; the pale fingers
became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled
and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle emotion. I saw that she must dieand I struggled
desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to my astonishment,
even more energetic than my own. There had been much in her stern nature to impress me with the
belief that, to her, death would have come without its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey
any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish
at the pitiable spectacle. I would have soothedI would have reasoned; but, in the intensity of her wild
desire for lifefor lifebut for lifesolace and reason were alike the uttermost of folly. Yet not until the
last instance, amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external placidity
of her demeanour. Her voice grew more gentlegrew more lowyet I would not wish to dwell upon the
wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced, to a melody more
than mortalto assumptions and aspirations which mortality had never before known.
That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been easily aware that, in a bosom such
as hers, love would have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only was I fully impressed with the
strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing
of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so
blessed by such confessions?how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved
in the hour of her making them? But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in
Ligeias more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at
length recognised the principle of her longing, with so wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now
fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longingit is this eager vehemence of desire for lifebut for life
that I have no power to portrayno utterance capable of expressing.
At high noon of the day in which she departed, beckoning me, peremptorily, to her side, she bade me
repeat certain verses composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were these:
Lo! tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and
drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The
music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they,
who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out
their condor wings Invisible Woe!
That motley drama!oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore, By a crowd
that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot; And much of Madness, and |
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