Monday, May 28, 2012

From Lines To Rhymes : Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and The Pendulum



Down steadily down it crept.
The pendulum hanging from a crescent pit
A death-condemned, in there stepped
Like a heap of spirits out of frenzy knit.

Down – steadily down it crept.
The man shivering, shrieked and fell.
For hours or days maybe slept;
But still remained in that one cell.

Down unceasingly towards  descent.
How much he wished it ceased to sink;
But it swept and swept
Till his sanity is wrecked
Till the axe almost dwelt
In the poor man’s chest.

“Death, oh  death! Come to me”, he cried.
“Peace I’ve been denied.
I am a restless mind, the impatient kind.
Death, oh death! Come to me”, he cried.

Then reason he gained ;
“Glistening pit with my own blood stained?
By the name of Horror, I will not faint
Or dread your angles of iron made. “

He glared into the ceiling.
Hell it was seeming.
No escape, no fleeing.
In tears he burst weeping.

A thousand deaths; but not this one.
He was rushing to the end, and nothing could be done.
A long shrill scream, his last breaths outran.

Then screams other than his, he heard.
Trumpets like thunder which did sunder
The fiery walls pressing him under
The pendulum now existing even in his asylum,
In his dreams and his nightmarish delirium.



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