Alone

    We all have memories of our childhood and I hope your recollections are of happy times. Unfortunately, life I know isn't kind to us all and many writers of the past and present put their own experiences down onto the page, creating unique work.

    I'm featuring today a classic poem by one of my favourite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. He was a genius at producing, a deep, dark atmosphere with his usage of words. Whether, the poem below reflects his own childhood, I am unable to say. But, as a man known to have had a turbulent, short life, the words do echo someone looking back at a not so perfect time as a child.

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 loved, I loved alone

Then in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life, was drawn

From every 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 around me rolled

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

  Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849