The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere -
Our memories were treacherous and sere, -
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) -
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here) -
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn -
As the star-dials hinted of morn -
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn -
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies -
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes -
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust -
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust -
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust -
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight! -
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright -
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom -
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb -
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume -Ulalume -
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere -
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! -
That I brought a dread burden down here -
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -
This misty mid region of Weir -
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Doctor C - Concept and Song Idea Music, Keyboards, Arrangement, Mix, Engineering.

Rob Grant - Music, Spoken, Bass.

Farrell Jackson - Acoustic Guitar.

Gary Carciello - Electric Guitars.

"Ulalume" is a ballad, a poem that tells a story. Like other ballads, "Ulalume" includes refrains (repetition of key phrases). Although the poem is not intended to be sung, its rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and alliteration give it a musical quality.  

 
The action takes place on a bleak October evening, probably Allhallows Eve (Halloween), in a forest near a lake.   
  
 

The Narrator (Speaker): Unnamed man whose beloved has died in the past year. 
Psyche: The narrator's personified soul, addressed as a female. Psyche is described as having wings.   
Astarte: Moon goddess of fertility, love, and reproduction in the ancient Middle East. She beckons the narrator to follow her. 
Dian: Another name for Diana, the virgin moon goddess in Roman mythology. In Greek mythology, her name is Artemis. The narrator compares Astarte to Dian. Dian herself does not appear in the poem.  
Ulalume: The narrator's deceased beloved. Poe conceived the idea for the poem several months after his wife, Virginia, died. It is likely that he had her in mind when he was writing the poem.   
Ghouls: Demons that haunt the forest. They exhume and eat corpses.  
The Lion: A reference to the constellation Leo, a group of stars that include one very bright star. In "Ulalume," the narrator refers to the Lion as a threat when Astarte passed by him.  

The narrator tells the story in first-person point of view.  When he carries on a dialogue with Psyche, he uses quotation marks. The narrator uses past tense except in the quotations. As in other works of Poe, the narrator is distraught and subject to the whims of his imagination. His state of mind, of course, opens the way for elaborate metaphors depicting surreal images. In other words, a touch of madness makes the poem work.  

Sadness 

The central theme of "Ulalume" is the profound and prolonged sadness which the death of a beautiful woman causes her beloved. This theme, a favorite of Poe, appeared in many of his other works, including "The Raven" and "Ligeia." 

The Pain of Old Memories 

The narrator seeks relief from the agony of remembering his lost love. But seeing the tomb of Ulalume in the "ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir" revives his memories of her and renews his agony.  

Deception 

Astarte deceives the narrator. Promising to lead him to a peaceful region, she leads him instead to the tomb of Ulalume, causing him to relive painful memories.  

No one knows for certain why Poe named the poem Ulalume. It is possible, however, that he coined the word from ululare, a Latin word meaning to shriek, howl, lament, or wail. But instead of using that Latin infinitive as he found it, he cut off the last three letters and replaced them with ume (pronounced oom) so that the word would rhyme with other words in the poem, gloom and tomb,