Last night I dreamt about autumn. I haven’t been able to remember any of my dreams for a few months now. But sitting here, at someone else’s desk, I heard the comment “What nice temperature. It’s like October!” She was referring to the dark blue light cast by the clouds and the echo of the rain through the streets.

As soon as those words left her lips, my mind had left, returning to the images of my hand touching an elongated cluster of dried flowers that were still holding the end of a branch of a peculiar tree I have never seen. The colors were strange, all in an orange hue. Burnt orange. I remember thinking that it was too soon for this.

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crisped and sere--

The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year:

Labels: dream, Poe, Ulalume

"Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom, And conquered her scruples and gloom; And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb, By the door of a legended tomb"



source: The Literary Connection

One of Jeff Buckley's most haunting performances isn't a song at all. It's a reading of Ulalume, a beautiful but deeply mysterious poem by 19th century American writer Edgar Allen Poe.

Jeff includes the disputed tenth and final verse, which is often omitted in standard texts of the work. It's unclear whether or not Poe intended this verse to be included in the final version of the poem.

"Of the many striking voices rounded up to sing and read the works of Edgar Allan Poe...none tears at the heart with the marvellous terror of the late Jeff Buckley" Rolling Stone 25 Dec 97

Labels: musical, passages, Poe, poetry