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RSS Feed The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe: A Beautiful Mind Consumed by Madness
A radiant palace once filled with music, wisdom, and harmony falls to shadow in Edgar Allan Poe’s allegory of a mind overtaken by madness.
The poem begins in a green valley where angels admire the palace of a noble king. Banners move across its golden roof, luminous windows reveal spirits traveling to music, and a pearl-and-ruby doorway releases voices praising their ruler. The structure appears ordered, beautiful, and alive with thought.
Then “evil things, in robes of sorrow” attack the kingdom. The banners lose their glory, the windows turn red, and visitors see distorted shapes moving to discordant melody. What once emerged as wisdom becomes a hideous laughing crowd. The haunted building is not simply a ruined castle; its rooms, windows, and door form the head and features of a person whose reason has collapsed.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Haunted Palace” transforms psychological deterioration into Gothic architecture. This spoken-word reading serves listeners searching for classic poetry, haunted-house imagery, poems about madness, and Poe’s recurring connection between beautiful places and damaged minds. The title remains first while the subtitle clarifies the poem’s central allegory without reducing its mystery.
This episode is sponsored by HenFlix.com.
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WEBVTT
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One of my favorite memories of scaring
myself as a child was getting a compilation
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book of Edgar Awlan Poe stories from
my elementary school library. It brought me
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so much fear and so much excitement. I remember running home from school with
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that book in my backpack as the
sky was dark and a storm was coming.
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I was in my childhood living room, but I wasn't alone. I
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had a pizza and the books of
Poe. Every so often I'll bring you
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a tale of Poe, and I
hope it gives you that scary fun sense,
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just the same as it does for
me. When the clock strikes midnight,
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the story will begin. The Haunted
Palace by Edgar Allan Poe, in
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the greenest of our valleys, by
good angels tenanted. Once a fair and
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stately palace, snow white palace reared
its head in the monarch thoughts demand it
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stood there. Never saraph spread his
pinion over fabric half so fair banner's yellow,
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glorious golden on its roof did float
and flow. This all this was
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in the olden time, long ago, And every gentle air that dallied in
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that sweet day along the rampant plumed
and pallid, a winged odor went away.
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All wanderers in that happy valley through
two luminous windows saw spirits moving musically
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to a lute's well tuned law,
round about a throne, where sitting preforgerene
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in state, his glory well befitting
the sovereign of the realm was seen,
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And all with pearl and ruby glowing
was the fair palace door, through which
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came flowing, flowing, flowing,
and sparkling evermore, a troop of echoes,
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whose sweet duty was but to sing
in voices of surpassing beauty, the
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wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things in robes of sorrow assail'd
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the monarch's high es state, ah
let us mourn, for never morrow shall
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dawn upon him, desolate and round
about his home. The glory that blush'd
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and bloom'd is but a dim remembered
story of the old time. Entuned and
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travelers now within that valley, through
the red litten windows sea vast forms that
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move fantastically to a discordant melody,
while like a rapid, ghastly river,
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through the pale door, a hideous
throng rush out forever and laugh but smile
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no more more
