They must have been, and were, in the
notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not
unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations),
the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to
which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular
moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of
these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more
forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or
mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the
first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the
tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which
were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace --reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
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