-ALONE-

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As
others saw; I could not bring
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 loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my
childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth
of good and ill
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 rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the
sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And
the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a
demon in my view.

-Edgar Allan Poe