Haunted

Roderick Usher, the tormented protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe’s tale The Fall of the House of Usher, is used to accompany his rhapsodic singing with a guitar. The narrator reports the words of one of these improvisations, in the form of a ballad titled The Haunted Palace. The palace of the title is a symbol of Roderick’s disturbed mind, and the whole plot of the tale, leading to corruption, is reflected in the poem. The six short pieces of Haunted were inspired by the six stanzas of this poem. In the first stanza, Poe presents a valley inhabited by angels, where stands a radiant palace. In the second, the poet describes the waving banners and the perfume that flows along the ramparts of the palace. In the third, the point of view is that of some wanderers who can see, through the windows of the palace, spirits dancing to the sound of a lute. The fourth stanza is pervaded by the sparkling echoes coming out of the main door. A decisive change of mood occurs in the last two stanzas. In the fifth, the palace is assaulted by «evil things» that soon make its glorious past a «dim-remembered story». The last one evokes the apparition of forms that «move fantastically / to a discordant melody», while a burst of hideous laughter is heard.