Eulalie by Edgar Allan Poe

Eulalie

I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

Ah, less- less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl-
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless
curl.

Now Doubt- now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

     Eulalie is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe about his marriage to Virginia Clemm. When Poe was twenty-seven years of age, he married his cousin, Virginia, when she was only thirteen. They had a happy marriage, despite the age difference. Words such as "girl" and "young" are subtle hints about his wife.
     In the beginning of the poem, the narrator is lonely and doesn't feel a purpose for life. He feels this way until he marries Eulalie. He loves her very much and feels that not even the stars can compare to her. He feels comforted by her and feels that Pain and Doubt will never visit him again. Every day with Eulalie is happy and bright. I'm not quite sure about the last three lines, but I think they are saying that Eulalie "upturns" even the love goddess Astarte's eye.
     I found a few literary devices in this poem, one of them being a metaphor. The narrator states that his "soul was a stagnant tide." This comparison shows the narrator's lack of motivation for life. I think it goes further and means that his soul was not clean and may even be inhabited by sinful desires, just as mosquitos inhabit still waters.  Eulalie had life and made the narrator pure again. On the sixth line, the word "less" was repeated to amplify how bright Eulalie's eyes were in comparison to the stars. An allusion is found on line twenty. Astarte is used to show how special Eulalie was, that even the goddess looked up at her. The words "moon-tints of purple and pearl" really caught my attention. They make me think of the vivid hues of violet, pink and cream of space. Eulalie must be a very unique girl to exceed the beauty of space.
     When I read this poem, I can sense how dear Eulalie is to the narrator, just as Virginia was to Poe. I get a happy, almost day-dream feel about the poem. You can tell that she is his life. If you take her away from him, you take his life away as well.