Imitation

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Imitation (1827) is an early poem about a mysterious tide of pride that separates the speaker from both joy and sorrow. "A dark unfathomed tide / Of interminable pride."
Author Edgar Allan Poe 
A dark unfathomed tide
  Of interminable pride--
  A mystery, and a dream,
  Should my early life seem;
  I say that dream was fraught
  With a wild and waking thought
  Of beings that have been,
  Which my spirit hath not seen,
  Had I let them pass me by,
  With a dreaming eye!
  Let none of earth inherit
  That vision on my spirit;
  Those thoughts I would control,
  As a spell upon his soul:
  For that bright hope at last
  And that light time have past,
  And my wordly rest hath gone
  With a sigh as it passed on:
  I care not though it perish
  With a thought I then did cherish.


1827.