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Shadow, a parable by Edgar Allan
Poe YEA though I walk through the valley

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of the shadow Psalm of David,
ye who read are still among the living,

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But I who write, shall have
long since gone my way into the

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region of shadows. For indeed,
strange things shall happen, and secret things

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be known, and many centuries shall
pass away. Ere these memorials be seen

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of men, and when seen there
will be some to disbelieve, and some

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to doubt, and yet a few
who will find much to ponder upon.

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In the characters here graven with a
stylus of iron. The year had been

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a year of terror, and of
feelings more intense than terror, for which

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there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs had taken

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place, and far and wide,
over sea and land. The black wings

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of the pestilence were spread abroad to
those nevertheless cunning in the stars, it

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was not unknown that the heavens wore
an aspect of ill, and to me

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the Greek oinos, among others.
It was evident that now had arrived the

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alternation of that seven hundred and ninety
fourth year. When at the entrance of

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Ares, the planet Jupiter is conjoined
with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus,

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the peculiar spirit of the skies,
if I mistake not greatly made itself

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manifest, not only in the physical
orb of the earth, but in the

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souls, imaginations, and meditations of
mankind. Over some flasks of the red

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Chian wine. Within the walls of
a noble hall in a dim city called

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Ptolemaeis, we sat at night,
a company of seven, And to our

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chamber there was no entrance save by
a lofty door of brass, and the

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door was fashioned by the artisan coronos, and being of rare workmanship, ship

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was fastened from within black draperies.
Likewise, in the gloomy room, shut

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out from our view the moon,
the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets,

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but the boding and the memory of
evil, they would not be so

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excluded. There were things around us, and about of which I can render

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no distinct account. Things material and
spiritual, heaviness in the atmosphere, a

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sense of suffocation, anxiety, and
above all that terrible state of existence which

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the nervous experience when the senses are
keenly living and awake. And meanwhile the

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powers of thought lie dormant, a
dead weight hung upon us. It hung

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upon our limbs, upon the household
furniture, upon the goblets from which we

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drank. All things were depressed and
borne down. Thereby, all things save

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only the flames of the seven lamps, which illumined our revel uprearing themselves in

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tall slenders of light. They thus
remained burning, all pallid and motionless.

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And in the mirror which their luster
formed upon the round table of ebony at

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which we sat, each of us
there assembled beheld the pallor of his own

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countenance, and the unquiet glare in
the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet

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we laughed and were merry in our
proper way, which was hysterical, and

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sang the songs of an acreon which
our madness, and drank deeply, although

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the purple wine reminded us of blood, For there was yet another tenet of

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our chamber, in the person of
young Zoilus, dead, and at full

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length he lay enshrouded the genius and
the demon of the scene. Alas he

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bore no portion in our mirth,
save that his countenance distorted with the plague,

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and his eyes in which death had
but half extinguished the fire of the

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pestilence seemed to take such interest in
our merriment as the dead may happily take

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in the merriment of those who are
to die. But although I Oinos felt

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that the eyes of the departed were
upon me, still I forced myself not

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to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily into the depths

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of the ebony mirror, saying with
a loud and sonorous voice, the songs

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of the Son of Taos. But
gradually my songs they ceased, and their

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echoes, rolling afar off among the
sable draperies of the chamber, became weak

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and undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo from among those sable draperies

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where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined

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shadow, a shadow such as the
moon when low in heaven, might fashion

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from the figure of a man.
But it was the shadow neither of man,

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nor of God, nor of any
familiar thing. A while among the

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draperies of the room, it at
length rested in full view upon the surface

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of the door of brass. But
the shadow was vague and formless and indefinite,

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and was the shadow neither of man
nor of God, neither God of

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Greece, nor God of Chaldea,
nor any Egyptian god. And the shadow

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rested upon the brazen doorway and under
the arch of the entablature of the door,

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and moved not nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained.

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And the door whereupon the shadow rested, was, if I remember,

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aright over against the feet of the
young Zoilus, enshrouded. But we,

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the Seven, there assembled, having
seen the shadow as it came out from

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among the draperies, dared not steadily
behold it, but cast down our eyes

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and gazed continually into the depths of
the mirror of Ebony. And at length,

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I Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling

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and its appellation. And the shadow
answered, I am shadow, and my

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dwelling is near to the catacombs of
Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains

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of Hallucion, which border upon the
foul Charonian Canal. And then did we

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the Seven, start from our seats
in horror, and stand trembling and shuddering

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and aghast, For the tones in
the voice of the shadow were not the

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tones of anyone being, but of
a multitude of beings, and varying in

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their cadences from syllable to syllable,
fell duskly upon our ears, in the

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well remembered and familiar accents of many
thousand departed friends, end of shadow, a parable