Tynan Portillo presents…featuring the best horror stories of the 19th century…welcome to The Poe Show podcast. Narrated by Tynan Portillo.

Today’s episode, Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe.

Kind solace in a dying hour!

         Such, father, is not (now) my theme—

     I will not madly deem that power

             Of Earth may shrive me of the sin

             Unearthly pride hath revell’d in—

         I have no time to dote or dream:

     You call it hope—that fire of fire!

     It is but agony of desire:

     If I can hope—Oh God! I can—

         Its fount is holier—more divine—

     I would not call thee fool, old man,

         But such is not a gift of thine.

     Know thou the secret of a spirit

         Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.

     O! yearning heart! I did inherit

         Thy withering portion with the fame,

     The searing glory which hath shone

     Amid the jewels of my throne,

     Halo of Hell! and with a pain

     Not Hell shall make me fear again—

     O! craving heart, for the lost flowers

     And sunshine of my summer hours!

     Th’ undying voice of that dead time,

     With its interminable chime,

     Rings, in the spirit of a spell,

     Upon thy emptiness—a knell.

     I have not always been as now:

     The fever’d diadem on my brow

         I claim’d and won usurpingly—

     Hath not the same fierce heirdom given

         Rome to the Caesar—this to me?

             The heritage of a kingly mind,

     And a proud spirit which hath striven

             Triumphantly with human kind.

     On mountain soil I first drew life:

         The mists of the Taglay have shed

         Nightly their dews upon my head,

     And, I believe, the winged strife

     And tumult of the headlong air

     Have nestled in my very hair.

     So late from Heaven—that dew—it fell

         (Mid dreams of an unholy night)

     Upon me—with the touch of Hell,

         While the red flashing of the light

     From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,

         Appeared to my half-closing eye

         The pageantry of monarchy,

     And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar

         Came hurriedly upon me, telling

             Of human battle, where my voice,

         My own voice, silly child!—was swelling

             (O! how my spirit would rejoice,

     And leap within me at the cry)

     The battle-cry of Victory!

     The rain came down upon my head

         Unshelter’d—and the heavy wind

         Was giantlike—so thou, my mind!—

     It was but man, I thought, who shed

         Laurels upon me: and the rush—

     The torrent of the chilly air

     Gurgled within my ear the crush

         Of empires—with the captive’s prayer—

     The hum of suiters—and the tone

     Of flattery ‘round a sovereign’s throne.

     My passions, from that hapless hour,

         Usurp’d a tyranny which men

     Have deem’d, since I have reach’d to power;

             My innate nature—be it so:

         But, father, there liv’d one who, then,

     Then—in my boyhood—when their fire

             Burn’d with a still intenser glow,

     (For passion must, with youth, expire)

         E’en then who knew this iron heart

         In woman’s weakness had a part.

     I have no words—alas!—to tell

     The loveliness of loving well!

     Nor would I now attempt to trace

     The more than beauty of a face

     Whose lineaments, upon my mind,

     Are—shadows on th’ unstable wind:

     Thus I remember having dwelt

     Some page of early lore upon,

     With loitering eye, till I have felt

     The letters—with their meaning—melt

     To fantasies—with none.

     O, she was worthy of all love!

     Love—as in infancy was mine—

     ‘Twas such as angel minds above

     Might envy; her young heart the shrine

     On which my ev’ry hope and thought

         Were incense—then a goodly gift,

             For they were childish—and upright—

     Pure—as her young example taught:

         Why did I leave it, and, adrift,

             Trust to the fire within, for light?

     We grew in age—and love—together,

         Roaming the forest, and the wild;

     My breast her shield in wintry weather—

         And, when the friendly sunshine smil’d,

     And she would mark the opening skies,

     I saw no Heaven—but in her eyes.

     Young Love’s first lesson is—the heart:

         For ‘mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

     When, from our little cares apart,

         And laughing at her girlish wiles,

     I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,

         And pour my spirit out in tears—

     There was no need to speak the rest—

         No need to quiet any fears

     Of her—who ask’d no reason why,

     But turn’d on me her quiet eye!

     Yet more than worthy of the love

     My spirit struggled with, and strove,

     When, on the mountain peak, alone,

     Ambition lent it a new tone—

     I had no being—but in thee:

         The world, and all it did contain

     In the earth—the air—the sea—

         Its joy—its little lot of pain

     That was new pleasure—the ideal,

         Dim, vanities of dreams by night—

     And dimmer nothings which were real—

         (Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)

     Parted upon their misty wings,

             And, so, confusedly, became

             Thine image, and—a name—a name!

     Two separate—yet most intimate things.

     I was ambitious—have you known

             The passion, father? You have not:

     A cottager, I mark’d a throne

     Of half the world as all my own,

             And murmur’d at such lowly lot—

     But, just like any other dream,

             Upon the vapour of the dew

     My own had past, did not the beam

             Of beauty which did while it thro’ 

     The minute—the hour—the day—oppress

     My mind with double loveliness.

     We walk’d together on the crown

     Of a high mountain which look’d down

     Afar from its proud natural towers

         Of rock and forest, on the hills—

     The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

         And shouting with a thousand rills.

     I spoke to her of power and pride,

         But mystically—in such guise

     That she might deem it nought beside

         The moment’s converse; in her eyes

     I read, perhaps too carelessly—

         A mingled feeling with my own—

     The flush on her bright cheek, to me

         Seem’d to become a queenly throne

     Too well that I should let it be

         Light in the wilderness alone.

     I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,

         And donn’d a visionary crown—

             Yet it was not that Fantasy

             Had thrown her mantle over me—

     But that, among the rabble—men,

             Lion ambition is chain’d down—

     And crouches to a keeper’s hand—

     Not so in deserts where the grand

     The wild—the terrible conspire

     With their own breath to fan his fire.

     Look ‘round thee now on Samarcand!—

         Is not she queen of Earth? her pride

     Above all cities? in her hand

         Their destinies? in all beside

     Of glory which the world hath known

     Stands she not nobly and alone?

     Falling—her veriest stepping-stone

     Shall form the pedestal of a throne—

     And who her sovereign? Timour—he

         Whom the astonished people saw

     Striding o’er empires haughtily

         A diadem’d outlaw—

     O! human love! thou spirit given,

     On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!

     Which fall’st into the soul like rain

     Upon the Siroc wither’d plain,

     And failing in thy power to bless

     But leav’st the heart a wilderness!

     Idea! which bindest life around

     With music of so strange a sound

     And beauty of so wild a birth—

     Farewell! for I have won the Earth!

     When Hope, the eagle that tower’d, could see

         No cliff beyond him in the sky,

     His pinions were bent droopingly—

         And homeward turn’d his soften’d eye.

     ‘Twas sunset: when the sun will part

     There comes a sullenness of heart

     To him who still would look upon

     The glory of the summer sun.

     That soul will hate the ev’ning mist,

     So often lovely, and will list

     To the sound of the coming darkness (known

     To those whose spirits hearken) as one

     Who, in a dream of night, would fly

     But cannot from a danger nigh.

     What tho’ the moon—the white moon

     Shed all the splendour of her noon,

     Her smile is chilly—and her beam,

     In that time of dreariness, will seem

     (So like you gather in your breath)

     A portrait taken after death.

     And boyhood is a summer sun

     Whose waning is the dreariest one—

     For all we live to know is known,

     And all we seek to keep hath flown—

     Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall

     With the noon-day beauty—which is all.

     I reach’d my home—my home no more—

         For all had flown who made it so—

     I pass’d from out its mossy door,

         And, tho’ my tread was soft and low,

     A voice came from the threshold stone

     Of one whom I had earlier known—

         O! I defy thee, Hell, to show

         On beds of fire that burn below,

         A humbler heart—a deeper wo—

     Father, I firmly do believe—

         I know—for Death, who comes for me

             From regions of the blest afar,

     Where there is nothing to deceive,

             Hath left his iron gate ajar,

         And rays of truth you cannot see

         Are flashing thro’ Eternity—

     I do believe that Eblis hath

     A snare in ev’ry human path—

     Else how, when in the holy grove

     I wandered of the idol, Love,

     Who daily scents his snowy wings

     With incense of burnt offerings

     From the most unpolluted things,

     Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven

     Above with trelliced rays from Heaven

     No mote may shun—no tiniest fly

     The light’ning of his eagle eye—

     How was it that Ambition crept,

         Unseen, amid the revels there,

     Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt

         In the tangles of Love’s very hair?

Edgar Allan Poe was only 17 years old when he first wrote Tamerlane. It was published in 1827 in a collection called “Tamerlane and Other Poems.” This was the first of his works to ever be published. And for an unknown reason, it was not credited to Edgar Allan Poe, instead he insisted it be credited by “a Bostonian.” There were only 50 copies printed in 1827 and the poem was over 400 lines long (for perspective, that’s a poem that’s 40 pages in length) however it was then revised in 1829, this time with only a little over 200 lines. Poe was a devoted reader of poetry from Lord Byron, but he felt that Tamerlane was too similar to Lord Byron’s work when it was first published, so he revised it to begin to find his own poetic voice.

It is theorized that what inspired this poem might have been the passing of one of three people in Poe’s life. His early love Sarah Elmira Royster, his birth mother Eliza Poe, or his foster mother Frances Allan. Now, those names made me do some more research and here’s what I found. Edgar Allan Poe, his brother Henry and sister Rosalie, were born to a father and mother (both actors), named David and Elizabeth Poe. But his father abandoned his family very early and Poe’s mother died of tuberculosis. The children were then separated and raised by different families, Poe being raised by Frances and John Allan, who gave him their middle name. I just wanted to appreciate the history of where Edgar Allan Poe got his world-famous name from.

This poem is based on a Turco-Mongol warrior and conqueror from the 14th century, who has been historically known as Tamerlane, or Timur. He is known for founding the Timurid Empire which lasted from about 1370 till after the warlord’s death in 1405 and finally falling in 1507. Poe has stated that although this poem is based upon an historical figure, he has “taken the full liberty of a poet.” So the poem of Tamerlane is not supposed to be taken as historical fact.

I wanted the music for this episode to reflect Timur’s adventurous and rebellious traits, while keeping that forlorn mood. So starting with an organ, to help signify death, horror and a foreboding sense of the religious undertones that Timur is feeling on his deathbed, sounded like it fit this story. I loved creating that part with the organ and the hard rock guitar, that felt really…right. It just felt totally right for Timur and his story.

Now, as the story begins, Timur is on his deathbed confessing to a priest, but he specifies he’s not looking for sympathy and comfort before dying. Instead, he seems to be asking the priest for forgiveness for pride and to know why he would have abandoned love in pursuit of ambition. The Biblical allegory that Poe makes is also quite prominent, with Timur saying he and his love lived in a forest paradise, young and innocent. Sounds a lot like Adam and Eve in the garden. But he goes on to say “I do believe Eblis hath a snare in every human path-else how when in the holy grove, I wandered of the idol Love.” So again, we have the allegory of being in a holy grove filled with love. And Eblis is the leader of the devils in Islam, the chief evil Jinni, thereby solidifying the allegory Poe is making. Timur feels that leaving his love for ambition was a temptation and a sin, of which he asks forgiveness and understanding of the human desire for glory.

  He muses about his upbringing and his journey from squalor to royalty, to me the language seems to imply he knew he was meant for greatness. Especially when he says, “A cottager, I marked a throne of half the world as my own.” He plays himself up to the priest, but then says as a boy who had none of this glory, he seemed happier with a young woman he fell in love with at the time. They lived in the forest, in the cold and the rain, just being with each other, protecting and providing for each other. He says, “I saw no Heaven but in her eyes.” (One of my favorite lines! Beautiful!)

Probably my very favorite line was, when talking about love, he asks “Why did I leave it, and, adrift, trust to the fire within for light?” I don’t think I have ever read a more beautiful line of poetry yet. Poe has plenty of characters who lose their loved ones due to some tragedy that they couldn’t control. But Timur abandoned his lover, left her in exchange for glory in battle. However, the story does suggest that he talked with his love about this future of fame and he thought she wanted the same thing, even justified his ambition and said “The flush on her bright cheek, to me seemed to become a queenly throne too well that I should let it be light in the wilderness alone.” To me, that means he wanted to pursue his ambition to also give her more in the world. But, he went off to war and battled for so long that he just forgot her. Even returning to his old home, he says all had flown who made it home and the threshold stone had a voice, like an echo of what he once had. That seems to be the moment he realized what he sacrificed for ambition.

And it’s very poignant that Poe ends this story with a question of how ambition crept up on him and suddenly became entangled with Love. By the end, the poem becomes the musings and regrets of an old man. So, what’s the moral? Is it that it’s virtuous to be poor as long as you have love?

Well, in my opinion, the moral is if you base your identity on something at the exclusion of love, it’s not going to be a life that feels worth living. I want to provide for my wife and our family, and to do that I need a successful career. I also want my wife to have a successful career as an actress and be able to perform because it makes her happy. But without love, you may be able to survive, but you won’t live. You will only become a shell with a soul, holding questions about how you got there and why no one is around you to care.

I know this is Poe but that’s a really depressing way to end this episode. Love is important, that’s all!

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