Edgar Allan Poe Poems - What Are His Most Famous Poems?

Check out some Edgar Allan Poe poems and what are his most famous writings?

EDGAR ALLAN POE POEMS – These are some of the most famous poems of Edgar Allan Poe and a brief story about his life.

At a young age, Edgar Allan Poe became an orphan. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19th, 1809. His mother died and after that, his father abandoned him. He came and lived with the Allan family where he has gotten his middle name.

He attended the University of Virginia and attempted to enter the military but failed. During his enlistment, he did Tamerlane, and Other Poems.

This is where his career in literature started. He started by making prose and later on became a literary critic. He married his 13-year-old cousin named Virginia Clemm and they lived in Baltimore, Maryland for a while. This was the time he made his instant poem entitled The Raven.

Two years after, his wife died due to tuberculosis. And after his wife died, his writings became darker. He wrote Annabel Lee, one of the darkest but greatest poems he wrote after his wife died.

Check out a few poem titles of Poe below:

“Alone” (1875)
“Annabel Lee” (1849)
“The Bells” (1849)
“The City in the Sea” (1831)
“The Conqueror Worm” (1843)
“Dream-Land” (1844)
“A Dream Within A Dream” (1850)
“Eldorado” (1849)
“For Annie” (1849)
“The Haunted Palace” (1839)
“Lenore” (1845)
“The Raven” (1845)
“The Sleeper” (1831)
“Sonnet – To Science” (1845)
“Spirits of the Dead” (1829)
“To The River” (1829)
“A Valentine” (1850)
“The Valley of Unrest” (1845)
“The Haunted Palace”
“To Helen”
“To My Mother”
“To One in Paradise”
“The Valley of Unrest”

Read a couple below:

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Eldorado

GAILY bedight,
        A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
        Had journeyed long,
        Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old —
        This knight so bold —
And o’er his heart a shadow
        Fell as he found
        No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
        Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow —
        “Shadow,” said he,
        “Where can it be —
This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the Mountains
        Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
        Ride, boldly ride,”
        The shade replied, —
“If you seek for Eldorado!”

Poe died in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849 and his writings are the central pieces we dive into in literature subjects. He is a major figure in world literature. Apart from his poems, he also had profound short stories and critical theories.

His poetries and stories highly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century. Some of the best-known stories include The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Tell-Tale Heart.