Edgar Allan Poe

Alone (Poe)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring

common spring

Spring as source, not season—his emotions don't come from the same wellspring as other people's. He's claiming fundamental difference, not just moodiness.

My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd — ''I'' lov'd alone —

I lov'd alone

Double meaning: loved in solitude, and loved things nobody else loved. The italics emphasize both the 'I' and 'alone'—he's underlining his isolation.

Then — in my childhood

Pivot point. He's been describing effects, now he'll explain the cause—something that happened in childhood that 'binds' him still.

''Then'' — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill

good and ill

The mystery came from both extremes—beauty and terror, fountain and torrent. His vision sees darkness in everything, even golden sunlight.

The mystery which binds me still —
From the torrent, or the fountain —
From the red cliff of the mountain —
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold —
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by —
From the thunder, and the storm —
And the cloud that took the form

When the rest of Heaven was blue

Key detail: he sees the demon-cloud while everyone else sees clear sky. The parenthetical makes it worse—he knows his vision is singular.

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view —
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Poem Poe Tried to Hide

Poe never published this poem. It surfaced in 1875, 26 years after his death, in the autograph album of a Baltimore woman named Lucy Holmes. He probably wrote it around 1829, age 20, after his foster mother Frances Allan died and his relationship with his foster father John Allan collapsed. The poem reads like a private confession—which makes sense, because that's exactly what it was.

The "mystery which binds me still" isn't metaphorical. Poe's mother Eliza died of tuberculosis when he was two; he watched her cough blood in a Richmond boarding house. His father David abandoned the family before that. By childhood's end, he'd lost both parents, been taken in by the Allans (who never formally adopted him), and developed the psychological architecture this poem describes: seeing darkness in sunlight, demons in clouds.

"From the same source I have not taken / My sorrow" is the thesis. Other people's sadness comes from loss or disappointment. His comes from something earlier and stranger—a way of seeing installed so young it feels like original wiring. The poem catalogs this in two movements: lines 1-8 describe the condition (isolation, difference), lines 9-22 locate its origin in "childhood" and "a most stormy life."

The final image matters: "a demon in my view" while "the rest of Heaven was blue." Not 'the demon I saw' but 'the demon-shape the cloud took in my view'—he knows his perception is the variable. The parenthetical admission is devastating. He sees the darkness. He knows others don't. He's alone anyway.

The Catalog of Sources

Lines 13-22 are a list: "From the torrent, or the fountain— / From the red cliff of the mountain—" etc. But notice what he's actually cataloging. These aren't sources of the mystery. They're where he found it—or where it found him. The mystery "was drawn / From ev'ry depth of good and ill," meaning it came from both beauty (fountain, golden sun) and terror (lightning, storm, demon).

The phrasing is strange: "From the sun that 'round me roll'd / In its autumn tint of gold." Autumn gold is harvest beauty, but also decay. The sun rolls around him like he's the center—solipsistic, but also trapped. Then immediately: "From the lightning in the sky / As it pass'd me flying by." Lightning passes, doesn't strike. He's observing violence, not experiencing it directly.

The final couplet does the real work. "The cloud that took the form / (When the rest of Heaven was blue) / Of a demon in my view." Three details: (1) the cloud 'took the form'—it transformed, or he transformed it; (2) everyone else saw clear sky; (3) "in my view" acknowledges the vision is his alone. This is Poe describing his own imagination as a curse he can't escape, installed in childhood, permanent.