[Edgar:]
|
And then I had a vision
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
Ah Edgar
|
Ah Edgar, my dear friend Edgar
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
It's been a long time, Roderick
|
I've ridden many miles
|
It's been a dull and soundless day for autumn
|
The leaves have lost their autumn glow
|
and the clouds seem oppressive with their drifting finery
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
I know, my friend
|
Though I own so much of this land I find
|
the country insufferable
|
I deal only in half pleasures
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
Speaking of half pleasures
|
would you care for a tincture of opium?
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
Nothing would please me more than to smoke
|
with an old friend
|
|
I've experienced the hideous dropping of the veil
|
the bitter lapse into common life
|
unredeemed dreariness of thought
|
I have an iciness, a sickening of the heart
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
It's true you don't look well, Roderick
|
but I am your friend
|
no matter the occasion or position of the stars
|
I'm glad you wrote me
|
but I must admit to concern
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
I cannot contain my heart
|
Edgar, I look to you for solace
|
for relief from myself
|
What I have is constitutional
|
a family evil, a nervous affection that must surely pass
|
But I do have this morbid acuteness of senses
|
I can eat only the most insipid food
|
clothes only of the lightest texture
|
The odor of flowers I find oppressive
|
My eyes cannot bear even the faintest light
|
|
[Madeline Usher:]
|
[moaning]
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
Did you hear that?
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
I hear
|
I am listening, go on
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
I shall perish
|
I will perish in this deplorable folly
|
I dread the future
|
Not the events, the results
|
The most trivial event
|
causes the greatest agitation of the soul
|
I do not fear danger except in its absolute effect terror
|
I find I must inevitably abandon life and reason together
|
in my struggles with the demon fear
|
|
Perhaps you'll think me superstitious
|
but the physique of this place
|
it hovers about me like a great body
|
some diseased outer shell
|
some decaying finite skin encasing my morale
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
You mentioned your sister was ill
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
My beloved sister, my sole companion
|
has had a long continuing illness
|
whose inevitable conclusion seems forsworn
|
This will leave me the last of the ancient race of Ushers
|
|
[Madeline Usher:]
|
[moaning]
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
She looks so much like you
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
I love her in a nameless way
|
more than I love myself
|
Her demise will leave me hopelessly
|
confined to memories and realities of a future
|
so barren as to be stultifying
|
|
[Madeline Usher:]
|
[moaning]
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
Oh, what of physicians?
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
Ah, they are baffled
|
Until today she refused bed rest
|
wanting to be present in your honor
|
but finally she succumbed to the prostrating power of the destroyer
|
You will probably see her no more
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
Sound and music take us to the twin curves of experience
|
Like brother and sister intertwined
|
they relieve themselves of bodily contact
|
and dance in a pagan revelry
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
I have soiled myself with my designs
|
I am ashamed of my brain
|
The enemy is me
|
and the executioner terror
|
Music is a reflection of our inner self
|
unfiltered agony touches the wayward string
|
The wayward brain confuses itself
|
with the self-perceived future
|
and turns inward with loathing and terror
|
Either by design or thought
|
we are doomed to know our own end
|
I've written a lyric
|
|
[Edgar:]
|
May I hear it?
|
|
[Roderick Usher:]
|
It is called "The Haunted Palace"
|
|
In the greenest of our valleys,
|
By good angels tenanted,
|
Once a fair and stately palace --
|
Snow-white palace -- reared its head.
|
|
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
|
On its roof did float and flow;
|
(This -- all this -- was in the olden time long ago)
|
And every gentle air that dallied,
|
Along the rampart plumed and pallid,
|
A winged odor went away.
|
|
All wanderers in that happy valley
|
Through two luminous windows saw
|
Spirits moving musically
|
The sovereign of the realm serene,
|
A troop of echoes whose sweet duty
|
Was but to sing
|
In voices of surpassing beauty,
|
| The wit and wisdom of the |
