Tynan Portillo presents, featuring the works of Edgar Allan Poe and the best horror stories from the 19th century. Welcome to The Poe Show podcast. Music and narration by Tynan Portillo. Please see trigger warnings in this episode description.
Today’s episode, The Valley of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe.
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye—
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:—from out their fragrant tops
External dews come down in drops.
They weep:—from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
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This poem was definitely not an easy analysis for me. It’s kept very vague and much of its symbolism is likely to carry multiple meanings. And apparently, Edgar Allan Poe changed it 7 times over the years. The Valley of Unrest was first published in 1831, Poe edited it and republished it in 1836, he cut out nearly half of the original poem by 1845, and he continued to make minor changes to it through 1845. I found a very helpful post on the website eapoe.org that actually features the different variations of the poem. I’ll link that post in this episode's description.
Because of the poem’s intentional indistinctness, it can be interpreted various ways, as with all art. But I’ll discuss both my takeaway and another explanation I’ve read.
The poem emphasizes that once, the valley was peaceful, back when there were no people in it. People had gone unto wars and trusted the stars to look after the flowers in the valley. But now the valley is full of unrest. Unrest - such a strange word that means so much. There’s this strange movement through the trees and clouds that isn’t due to wind; it’s a bit unnatural. Is the unrest, noise? Chatter? Overstimulation? Panic? Confusion? All of the above? And amidst this restlessness, the flowers - violets and lilies - weep perennial tears over nameless graves.
One explanation I found is that this valley is now a graveyard for soldiers from war. This is quite likely because the poem was initially inspired by a story from Scotland’s Battle of Rullion Green in 1666. Rumor has it that a man named Adam Sanderson found a soldier from the battle and buried him at the top of Black Hill. Having no knowledge of this beforehand, I took a different approach to the poem.
It seemed to me that the valley was peaceful before people ever got involved with it, and then became restless once visitors started coming. If you’ve seen The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology all about death, what rang in my head is the story of All Gold Canyon. The beginning of this section of the film shows how peaceful this valley and river are…only to be interrupted by a man who begins digging and panning for gold. There’s a scuffle between two men fighting for gold and eventually one leaves with his treasure, and we see the valley return to its peace, as if to say that humanity throws nature out of balance. That’s the very feeling I got while reading this poem: humanity is quite unnatural and nature isn’t comfortable with us. Which is an interesting thought.
Plenty of us like to enjoy some fresh air and greenery every now and then…but how often is that nature actually manufactured? If you’re hiking, there’s still a trail that’s been made to give you a good view of everything, it’s not perfectly natural. If you’re in a neighborhood, nature has been purposefully placed in certain areas for a more pleasant aesthetic. Birds and squirrels and deer run away from you, startled at your presence. So although we are also animals of nature, (you know, we’re predators) we can very easily pollute the perfection of nature with our higher aspirations for life, our pursuit of gold. It makes me think of Walden, the book by Henry David Thoreau, where he lived in the woods for a period of time and just contemplated the growing complication of human life and industrialization which abandons the simplicity of nature. That is what I thought the poem was attempting to address. However, I can see after my study that it’s definitely connected to the Battle of Rullion Green and my initial impressions were a bit off the mark. Still, the idea is worth examining. That idea is what I wanted to put into the music for the poem, as well as a feeling of restlessness with very little resolution.
What did you get from listening to this poem? Please leave a comment and let me know if you had some other ideas that leapt out at you while listening.
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That’s all for now, but you’ll hear from me in the next episode on The Poe Show.
