r 

 
 \
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE.
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 
 THE HENNEBERRY COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 * AGE 
 
 Memoir 
 
 N. P. Willis on the Death of Poe 113 
 
 POEMS AND ESSAYS: 
 
 The Poetic Principle 125 
 
 Author's Preface to the Poems 153 
 
 The Raven I5S 
 
 Lenore 161; 
 
 Hymn 16$ 
 
 A Valentine 163 
 
 The Coliseum 164! 
 
 X Helen 166' 
 
 - To i68| 
 
 Ulalume , 169 
 
 The Bells 17* 
 
 The Enigma i?6j 
 
 Annabel Lee 177 
 
 To my Mother 179' 
 
 The Haunted Palace 179 
 
 The Conqueror Worm 181 
 
 To F S S. O D 182! 
 
 To One in Paradise 182 
 
 The Valley of Unrest 1831 
 
 The City in the Sea l8f 
 
 The Sleeper 186 
 
 Silence 188 
 
 -"' A Dream within a Dream 188 
 
 Dreamland 189 
 
 To Zante ig 1 
 
 ^^JCulalie 192! 
 
 Eldorado 193 
 
 3 
 
 1548680
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 Israfel 193 
 
 For Annie 195 
 
 To igg. 
 
 Bridal Ballad 199 
 
 To F 200 
 
 Scenes from "Politian" 201 
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH. 
 
 Sonnet to Science 225 
 
 Al Aaraaf 226 
 
 To the River 240 
 
 Tamerlane 240 
 
 To 248 
 
 ~^A Dream 249 
 
 Romance 249 
 
 Fairy-Land 250 
 
 The Lake To 252 
 
 Song 252 
 
 To M. L. S 253 
 
 .-Spirit of the Dead 254 
 
 To Helen 255 
 
 Alone , f , 1 1 . i . , 1 1 , 1 1 . 255
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, on 
 the 1 9th of January, 1809. He was named 
 Allan after a wealthy and intimate friend of 
 the family, and when both his parents died his 
 godfather, who, although long married, was 
 childless, adopted the little orphan, then only 
 six years old. Even at this early age Poe was 
 noted for his precocity as well as for his 
 beauty, and Mr. Allan appears to have been 
 extremely proud of his youthful protege, and 
 to have treated him in many respects as his 
 own son. The boy is stated to hav^e been 
 made quite a show-child of by his adopted 
 father; a tenacious memory and a musical ear, 
 we are informed, enabling him to learn by 
 rote, and declaim to the evening visitors 
 assembled at Mr. Allan's house, the finest pas- 
 sages of English poetry with great effect. 
 "The justness of his emphasis, and his evident 
 appreciation of the poems he recited," we 
 learn, made a striking impression upon his 
 audience, "while every heart was won by the 
 ingenuous simplicity and agreeable manner of 
 the pretty little elocutionist." Gratifying as 
 these exibitions may have been to his god- 
 father's vanity, the probable consequence of 
 such a system of recurring excitements upon 
 the boy's morbidly nervous organization could 
 scarcely fail to be disastrous. Indeed, in after 
 
 5
 
 6 MEMOIR. 
 
 years, the poet bitterly bewailed the pernicious 
 effects of his childhood's misdirected aims. *'I 
 am," he but too truthfully declared, "the 
 descendant of a race whose" imaginative and 
 easily excitable temperament has at all times 
 rendered them remarkable, and in my earliest 
 infancy I gave evidence of having fully inher- 
 ited the family character. As I advanced in 
 years it was more strongly developed, becom- 
 ing, for many reasons, a cause of serious dis- 
 quietude to my friends, and of positive injury 
 to myself; . . . my voice was a household 
 law, and, at an age when few children have 
 abandoned their leading strings, I was left to 
 the guidance of my own will, and became, in 
 all but name, the master of my own actions." 
 In 1816, the Allans having to visit England 
 on matters connected with the disposal of some 
 property there, brought their adopted son with 
 them, and after taking him on a tour through 
 England and Scotland with them, left him at 
 the Manor- House School in Church Street, 
 Stoke-Newington. The school belonged to a 
 Rev. Dr. Bransby, who is so quaintly described 
 in "William Wilson," one of Poe's finest sto- 
 ries. At the time of Poe's residence the school 
 grounds occupied a large area, but of late years 
 they have been greatly circumscribed in extent. 
 The description of the place, and the account 
 of his life there, Poe is stated to have declared 
 were autobiographical! y portrayed in this tale; 
 if so, a portion of "William Wilson's," oft- 
 quoted reminiscences must be relegated to the 
 exaggerated memories of childhood. In some
 
 MEMOIR, 7 
 
 respects the description of the "large, rambling 
 Elizabethan house" corresponds more closely 
 to the fine old manorial residence facing the 
 school, but in others the place is described 
 with almost pre-Raphaelite minuteness. The 
 picture of Stoke-Newington as it was when 
 Poe resided there is also unusually accurate in 
 its details. Friendless and orphaned though 
 he was, it was probably the happiest portion of 
 his life that the future poet passed in this con- 
 genial spot, this "misty-looking village of Eng- 
 land, where were a vast number of gigantic 
 and gnarled trees, and where all the houses 
 were excessively ancient." "In truth," adds 
 Poe, "it was a dream-like and spirit-soothing 
 place, that venerable old town," and it is not 
 strange that the boy's plastic mind should have 
 received, and retained indelibly imprinted 
 upon it the impression of, and in after years 
 recall, in fancy, "the refreshing chillness of its 
 deeply shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance 
 of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew 
 with undefinable delight, at the deep hollow 
 note of the church-bell, breaking each hour 
 with sudden and sullen roar, upon the still- 
 ness of the dusky atmosphere in which the 
 fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and 
 asleep." 
 
 Here, in this dreamy place, Edgar Poe spent 
 from four to five years of his existence, and, 
 notwithstanding the monotony of school 2ife, 
 was doubtless fully justified in looking back 
 upon the days passed in that venerable acad- 
 emy with pleasurable feelings. "The teeming
 
 8 , MEMOIR. 
 
 brain of childhood," to quote his own words, 
 4 'requires no external world of incident to 
 occupy or amuse it. . . . The morning's awak- 
 ening, the nightly summons to bed, the con- 
 nings, the recitations, the periodical half-holi- 
 days and perambulations, the play-ground, 
 with its broils, its pastimes, its intrigues ; 
 these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, 
 were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, 
 a world of rich incident, a universe of varied 
 emotion, of excitement, the most passionate 
 and spirit-stirring. 'Oh, le bon temps, que ce 
 siecle de ferf " 
 
 The house was, indeed still is, as Poe 
 described it, "old and irregular." "The 
 grounds," he continues, "were extensive, and 
 a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed 
 of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the 
 whole. This prison-like rampart formed the 
 limit of our domain ; beyond it we saw but 
 thrice a week once every Saturday afternoon, 
 when, attended by two ushers, we were per- 
 mitted to take brief walks in a body through 
 some of the neighboring fields, and twice dur- 
 ing Sunday, when we were paraded in the same 
 formal manner to the morning and evening 
 services in the one church of the village. . . . 
 At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a 
 more ponderous gate. It was riveted and 
 studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with 
 jagged iron spikes, '.tfliat impressions of deep 
 awe did it inspire! . . . The extensive en- 
 closure was irregular in form, having many 
 capricious recesses. Of these, three or four of
 
 MEMOIR. 9 
 
 the largest constituted the play-ground. It 
 was level, and covered with fine, hard gravel. 
 I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, 
 nor anything similar, within it. Ot course it 
 was in the rear of the house. In front lay a 
 small parterre, planted with box and other 
 shrubs, but through this sacred division we 
 passed only upon rare occasions indeed such 
 as a first advent to school, or final departure 
 thence, or perhaps when a parent or friend 
 having called for us we joyfully took our way 
 home for the Christmas or Midsummer holi- 
 days. ' ' 
 
 "The ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imper- 
 iousness. " which is declared to have rendered 
 the soi-disant ''William Wilson" a marked 
 character amongst his school-mates, so that by 
 slow but natural gradations he obtained an 
 ascendency over all. not greatly older than him- 
 self, may be safely assumed to represent Poe's 
 own character, even at this early epoch of his 
 life, as it is invariably found to represent it from 
 first to last. Undoubtedly it was in this "ven- 
 erable academy" that our poet acquired the 
 groundwork of that curious superstructure of 
 classic lore which in after years Was one of the 
 chief ornaments of his weird and wonderful 
 works. To the lustrum of his life spent in 
 England, Edgar Poe was probably far more 
 scholastically indebted than the world can or 
 will ever know, 
 
 In 1821, the lad was recalled home, and 
 coon afterward was placed by his adopted par- 
 ents at an academy in Richmond^ Virginia, 
 
 2 Poe's Poems.
 
 10 MEMOIR, 
 
 Mr. Allan would seem to have been very 
 proud of his handsome and precocious godson, 
 and always to have been willing to afford him 
 any amount of education procurable ; but of 
 parental love, of that deep sympathy for which 
 the poor orphan yearned, he seems to have 
 been utterly devoid. Not but what the impe- 
 rious little fellow was indulged in what money 
 could purchase, but the petting and spoiling 
 which he still appears to have received was not 
 of that kind to touch his tender heart. 
 Throughout life a morbid sensitiveness to 
 affection was one of his most distinguishing 
 traits, and this it was that frequently drove 
 him to seek in the society of dumb creatures 
 that love which was denied him, or which he 
 sometimes believed denied him, by human 
 beings. There is a paragraph in his terrible 
 tale ot "The Black Cat," which those who were 
 intimately acquainted with Poe will at once 
 recognize the autobiographical fidelity of. 
 ''From my infancy,'* he remarks, "I was noted 
 for the docility and humanity of my disposi- 
 tion. My tenderness of heart was even so 
 conspicuous as to make me the jest of my 
 companions. I was especially fond of ani- 
 mals, and was indulged by my parents with a 
 great variety of pets. With these I spent 
 most of my time and never was so happy as 
 when feeding and caressing them. This pecu- 
 liarity of character grew with my growth, and 
 in my manhood I derived from it one of my 
 principal sources of pleasure. To those who 
 have cherished an affection for a faithful and
 
 MEMOIR. II 
 
 sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble 
 of explaining the nature or the intensity of 
 the gratification thus derivable. There is 
 something in the unsel-fish self-sacrificing 
 love of a brute which goes directly to the heart 
 of him who has had frequent occasion to test 
 the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of 
 mere man. ' ' 
 
 In her before quoted little book Mrs. Whit- 
 man relates a well-authenticated and charac- 
 teristic anecdote of Poe when he was studying 
 at the Richmond academy, and whilst it very 
 strikingly illustrates the almost Quixotic con- 
 stancy of his attachments his gratitude for 
 kindness it also but too clearly demonstrates 
 how little sympathy and affection the young 
 orphan received from his adopted parents. 
 44 He one day accompanied a schoolmate to his 
 home," relates Mrs. Whitman, *' where he saw 
 
 for the first time Mrs. H S ;* the mother 
 
 of his young friend. This lady, on entering 
 the room, took his hand and spoke some gentle 
 and gracious words of welcome which so pen- 
 etrated the sensitive heart of the orphan boy 
 as to deprive him of the power of speech, and 
 for a time almost of consciousness itself. He 
 returned home in a dream, with but one 
 thought, one hope in life to hear again the 
 sweet and gracious words that had made the 
 desolate world so beautiful to him, and filled 
 his lonely heart with the oppression of a new 
 joy. This lady afterward became the confi- 
 dent of all his boyish sorrows, and hers was 
 
 *Mrs. Helen Stannard was the name of this lady.
 
 12 MEMOIR. 
 
 the one redeeming influence that saved and 
 guided him in the earlier days of his turbulent 
 and passionate youth." But, alas for the poor 
 lad, this lady was herself overwhelmed with 
 fearful and peculiar sorrows, and at the very 
 moment when her guiding voice was most 
 needed, she died. But when she was entombed 
 in the neighboring cemetery, her poor boyish 
 admirer could not endure the thought of her 
 lying there lonely and forsaken in her vaulted 
 home, and for months after her decease, 
 like his contemporary Petofi, the great Hun- 
 garian poet, at the grave of his girl-love 
 Etelka, Poe would go nightly to visit the tomb 
 of his revered friend, and "when the nights 
 were very dreary and cold, when the autumnal 
 rains fell, and the winds wailed mournfully 
 over the graves, he lingered longest and came 
 away most regretfully. " 
 
 For years, if not -for life, the memory of this 
 unfortunate lady tinged all his fancies and 
 filled his mind with saddening things. In a 
 letter written within a twelve-month of his 
 death to the truest friend, in all probability, of 
 his "lonesome latter years," Poe broke though 
 his usual reticence as to his early life, and con- 
 fessed that his exquisite stanzas, "Helen, thy 
 beauty is to me," were inspired by the mem- 
 ory of this lady, by "the one idolatrous and 
 purely ideal love" of his tempest-tossed boy- 
 hood. In the earliest versions of his boy- 
 hood's poems the name Helen frequently 
 recurs, and it was undoubtedly to her that he 
 inscribed "The Paean," a juvenile poem,
 
 MEMOIR. 13 
 
 which he subsequently greatly improved both 
 in rhythm and expression, and republished 
 under the musical name of "Lenore." The 
 description which Poe afterward gave to a 
 friend of the fantasies that haunted his brain 
 during" his desolate vigils in the cemetery, the 
 namtless fears and indescribable phantasms, 
 
 "Flapping from out their Condor wings 
 Invisible Woe!" 
 
 she compares to those which overwhelmed De 
 Quincey at the burial of his sweet sister and 
 playmate. We linger somewhat over this 
 little-known epoch of Poe's story, because we 
 are perfectly convinced that Mrs. Whitman has 
 indeed found "a key to much that seems 
 strange and abnormal in the poet's after life, 
 in those solitary churchyard vigils with all 
 their associated memories." There can in- 
 deed be no doubt that those who would seek 
 the clue to the psychological phenomena of his 
 strange existence, that intellect as Poe him- 
 self said which would try to reduce his "phan- 
 tasm to the commonplace," must know and 
 even study this phase of his being. The mind 
 which could so steadfastly trace, step by step, 
 the terrible stages of sentence after death, as 
 Edgar Poe's does in his weird "Colloquy of 
 Monos and Una," must, indeed, have been 
 one that frequently had sought to wrest from 
 the charnel-house its earthy secrets. 
 
 Returning to the more commonplace records 
 fcf his history, the future poet is described to. 
 us at this period of his life as remarkable
 
 U MEMOIR. 
 
 j 
 
 for his general cleverness, his feats of activity, 
 his wayward temper, his extreme personal 
 beauty, and his power of extemporaneous tale- . 
 telling, and, even at this early stage, as a 
 great classical scholar, and as well versed in 
 mathematics, botany, and other branches of 
 the natural sciences. It is but just that we 
 should refer to Griswold's account of his epoch 
 in the life of Edgar Poe, as that biographist's 
 mendacity is not known to all. 
 
 "In 1822," says Griswold, c 'Poe returned to 
 the United States, and after passing a few 
 months at an academy in Richmond, he en- 
 tered the university at Charlottesville, where 
 he led a very dissipated life; the manners 
 which then prevailed there were extremely 
 dissolute, and he was known as the wildest 
 and most reckless student ot his class ; . . . 
 he would have graduated with the highest 
 honors had not his gambling, intemperance, 
 and other vices induced his expulsion from the 
 university." The mere fact that, according 
 to Griswold's dates, Poe would only have been 
 at this time in the eleventh or twelfth year of 
 his age, is sufficient to induce doubt as to the 
 correctness of his accusations, but, fortunately 
 for the fair fame of the accused, indisputable 
 evidence as to the entire untruth of Griswold's 
 story has been procured. On May 22, 1860, 
 Dr. Stephen Maupin, president of the Univer- 
 sity of Virginia, in answer to various inquiries 
 made of him relative to Edgar Poe's career at 
 Charlottesville, procured a statement from 
 Mr. William Wertenbaker, secretary of the
 
 MEMOIR. 15 
 
 Faculty, which he further indorsed with the 
 remark that "Mr. Wertenbaker's statement is 
 worthy of entire confidence." "I may add," 
 he continues, "that there is nothing on the 
 Faculty records to the prejudice of Mr. Poe. 
 He appears to have been a successful student, 
 having obtained distinctions in Latin and 
 French at the closing examinations of 1826. 
 He never graduated here, no provision for 
 conferring degrees of any kind having been 
 made at the time he was a student here." Dr. 
 Maupin's letter is followed by the said state- 
 ment, and a most interesting as well as con- 
 clusive document it is. Says Mr. Werten- 
 baker : 
 
 "Edgar A. Poe was a student of the University of 
 Virginia during the second session, which commenced 
 February i, 1826, and terminated December i$th of the 
 same year. He signed the matriculation book on the 
 i4th of February, and remained in good standing as a 
 student till the session closed. He was born on the igth 
 of February, 1809, being a little under seventeen when 
 he entered the institution. He belonged to the schools 
 of ancient and modern languages, and as I was myself 
 a member of the latter, I can testify that he was toler- 
 ably regular in attendance, and a very successful stu- 
 dent, having obtained distinction in it at the final exam- 
 ination, the highest honor a student could then obtain, 
 the present regulation in regard to degrees not having 
 been at the time adopted. On one occasion Professor 
 Blatterman requested his Italian class to render into 
 English verse a portion of the lesson in Tasso, assigned 
 for the next lecture. Mr. Poe was the only one who 
 complied with the request. He was highly compli- 
 mented by the Professor for his performance. 
 
 "Although I had a passing acquaintance with Mr. Poe 
 from an early period of the session, it was not until near 
 its close that I had any social intercourse with him,
 
 16 MEMOIR. 
 
 After spending an evening together at a private house, 
 he invited me to his room. It was a cold night in De- 
 cember, and his fire having gone nearly out, by the aid 
 of some candle ends and the wreck of a table, he soon 
 rekindled it, and by its comfortable blaze I spent a very 
 pleasant hour with him. On this occasion he spoke 
 with regret of the amount of money he had wasted, and 
 the debts he had contracted. In a biographical sketch 
 of Mr. Poe, I have seen it stated that he was at one 
 time expelled from the university ; but that he after- 
 ward returned and graduated with the highest honors. 
 This is entirely a mistake. He spent but one session 
 at the university, and at no time did he fall under the 
 censure of the Faculty. He was not at that time ad- 
 dieted to drinking, but had an ungovernable passion for 
 card-playing. Mr. Poe was several years older than 
 his biographer represents him. His age, 1 have no 
 doubt, was correctly entered on the matriculation 
 book." 
 
 So much for the story started, or at all 
 events promulgated by Griswold, of Edgar 
 Poe's expulsion from the university. This 
 writer admits that Poe was noted at this time 
 for feats of hardihood, strength, and activity, 
 and recounts but with his usual exaggera- 
 tion an aquatic performance of the lad's. On 
 a hot day of June, according to Poe's own 
 statement, he swam from Ludlum's wharf to 
 Warwick, ^ distance of six miles, against a 
 strong tide ; and when the truth of the asser- 
 tion was publicly questioned, he obtained a 
 certification of the fact from several compan- 
 ions, including his dear classmate, Robert 
 Stannard. This document, moreover, declares 
 that "Mr. Poe did not seem at all fatigued, 
 and walked back to Richmond immediately 
 after the feat, which was undertaken for a
 
 MEMOIR. i? 
 
 wager. " Our poet had, indeed, no little con- 
 fidence in his swimming powers, and asserted 
 that, on a favorable day, he believed he could 
 swim the English Channel from Dover to 
 Calais. 
 
 In 1827, aroused by the heroic efforts the 
 Greeks were making to throw off the yoke of 
 their Turkish oppressors, and, doubtless, emu- 
 lous of Byron, whose example had excited the 
 chivalric boys of both continents, Edgar Poe 
 and an acquaintance, Ebenezer Burling, deter- 
 mined to start for Greece and offer their aid to 
 the insurgents. Either Mr. Burling's heart 
 failed, or parental authority was too strong for 
 him, for he stayed at home, whilst the embryo 
 poet, doubtless in headstrong opposition to the 
 wishes of his adopted parents, started alone 
 for Europe. Poe was absent for more than a 
 year, but the adventures of his journey have 
 never been told ; he seems to have been very 
 reticent upon the subject, and to have left un- 
 contradicted the various stories invented, and 
 even published during his lifetime, to account 
 for the interregnum in his history. That he 
 reached England is probable, but whether he 
 ever beheld, save in his "mind's-eye," the 
 remains of 
 
 "The glory that was Greece 
 And the grandeur that was Rome." 
 
 is still uncertain ; there are a few slight allus- 
 ions scattered amid his writings to the scenery 
 of both Greece and Italy, but it is impossible 
 to found anything reliable upon such data.
 
 18 MEMOIR. 
 
 The story as to his having arrived at St. Peters- 
 burg, and got involved in difficulties that nec- 
 essitated ministerial aid to extricate hhn, must 
 be given up, as must also that founded upon 
 the suggestion made by the anonymous author 
 of a scurrilous paper which appeared in the 
 Southern Literary Messenger, that Poe, when 
 in London, formed the acquaintance of Leigh 
 Hunt and Theodore Hook, and lived like 
 "that class of men . . . dragging out a preca- 
 rious existence in garrets, doing drudgery 
 work, writing for the great presses and for the 
 reviews, whose world-wide celebrity has been 
 the fruit of such men's labor." 
 
 In 1829 Edgar Poe returned home if Mr. 
 Allan's residence may so be termed. He 
 reached Richmond, Virginia, we have been 
 informed, early in March, but too late to take 
 a last farewell of his adopted mother, she 
 having died on the ayth of February, and her 
 funeral having taken place the very day before 
 Poe's return. Mrs. Allan had probably exer- 
 cised a conciliatory influence in the household, 
 where, we hear, it was frequently needed, and 
 the poor lad, who in after life invariably spoke 
 well of this lady, doubtless soon felt the effects 
 of her loss. Mr. Allan does not appear to have 
 manifested any great pleasure at the prodigal's 
 return, but when Poe expressed his willing- 
 ness to devote himself to the military profes- 
 sion, he exercised his influence and obtained a 
 nomination for him to a scholarship in the 
 military academy at West Point. As, accord- 
 ing to the rules of that institution, appoint-
 
 MEMOIR. 19 
 
 ments are not given to candidates after they 
 have attained their twenty-first birthday, the 
 young 1 author, for such he now was, was only 
 just in time to secure his nomination. Mean- 
 while, Poe had published a little volume of 
 poems, his first known essay in literature, 
 under the title of "Al Aaraaf, Temerlane, and 
 Other Poems." Lowell and others of the 
 poet's reviewers speak of an earlier edition of 
 this book as published in 1827, and from it the 
 delicate little lyric, "To Helen," is professedly 
 extracted. This 1827 volume is also stated to 
 have received very flattering notice from the 
 veteran author, John Neal, but it has disap- 
 peared without leaving any trace, and the 
 edition ot 1829, which was printed for private 
 circulation only, is the earliest discoverable 
 vestige of Poe's literary powers. 
 
 Reverting to the military academy, the 
 records show that Poe was admitted into that 
 institution as a cadet on the ist of July, 1830. 
 He is declared to have entered upon his new 
 mode of living with customary energy, but 
 very speedily discovered how totally unsuited 
 to him now was the strict discipline and mo- 
 notonous training of such a place as West 
 Point. The wayward and erratic course of 
 existence to which he had been accustomed, 
 together with his having been for so long a 
 time sole master of his own actions, rendered 
 it impossible for him to submit to the galling 
 restraints of this institution. A fellow-cadet 
 with him at the academy informs us of "his 
 utter inefficiency and state of abstractedness
 
 20 MEMOIR. 
 
 at that place. He could not, or would not, 
 he remarks, "follow its mathematical require 
 ments. His mind was off from the matter-of 
 fact routine of the drill, which in such a case 
 as his, seemed practical joking on some ethe- 
 real visionary expedition. He was marked," 
 adds our informant, "for an early death." 
 This institution was utterly unsuitable for 
 one of Poe's temperament and experience ; it 
 was a repetition of the old story of Pegasus at 
 the plow, and the climax was, as could easily 
 have been foreseen, that on the yth of Jan- 
 uary, 1831, he was tried by a general court- 
 martial "for various neglects of duty and diso- 
 bedience of orders," to which he could but 
 plead guilty, and, he was, on the subsequent 
 6th of March, "dismissed the service of the 
 United States." 
 
 In 1831, whilst still cadet, and all unawed 
 by the sentence impending, he published an 
 enlarged collection of his boyish rhymes under 
 the title of "Poems by Edgar A. Poe." This 
 volume, garnished with a quotation from 
 Rochefoucauld, "Tout le monde a raison" and 
 which, like its predecessors, was for private 
 circulation, was dedicated to "the United 
 States Corps of Cadets," a dedication which 
 appears to have drawn upon its unfortunate 
 author the ridicule of his fellow-students. A 
 fellow-cadet, a General Cullum, alluding to the 
 contents of this little volume, says: "These 
 verses were the source of great merriment 
 with us boys, who considered the author 
 cracked and the verses ridiculous doggerel. "
 
 MEMOIR. 21 
 
 Happily for literature, the opinion of ' 'us boys' ' 
 did not carry much weight, and Poe continued 
 to write "verses" quite regardless of West 
 Point and its judgments. This little book is 
 most interesting not only on account of its 
 cleverly written prefatory letter of seventeen 
 
 pages, addressed to a certain mythical "B , 
 
 but also from the fact that it contains a large 
 quantity of verse suppressed in later editions 
 of Poe's works. The prose is followed by a 
 poetical introduction of sixty-six lines, a por- 
 tion of which, under the title of "Romance," 
 is included in the general collection of 
 "Poems written in Youth." Many of the 
 omitted portions of this volume have a strange 
 biographical interest for those conversant with 
 the true story of Edgar Poe's life; to them 
 they hint of something more than mere 
 rhymes. The omissions from it are as happy as 
 the additions to those boyish poems. No re- 
 gard for the relics of his youth withheld Edgar 
 Poe in after life from pruning away the ex- 
 crescences of his juvenile verse; the critic's 
 unswerving hand clipped or molded all into 
 artistic unity. 
 
 Upon leaving West Point, Poe returned to 
 Mr. Allan's residence at Richmond, and 
 appears to have remained there some time on 
 sufferance. Soon after his return home he be- 
 came attached to Miss Royster, and was ulti- 
 mately, it is believed, engaged to her. Mr. 
 Allan, why it is not known, was violently 
 opposed to the match, and without his pecuni- 
 ary aid, matrimony was out of the question, as
 
 22 MEMOIR. 
 
 Poe was entirely dependent upon him. A vio- 
 lent quarrel took place between the old man 
 and his adopted son, and Poe, unable to sub- 
 mit calmly to the course of events, again left 
 home, this time with the intention of proceed- 
 ing to Poland, to expend his energies in aiding 
 the Poles in their struggles against Russia. 
 How far he got is not known, but it is sup- 
 posed that he did not leave America, having 
 been stopped by the intelligence that, on the 
 6th of September, Warsaw had fallen, carry- 
 ing with it the last hopes of the Polish insur- 
 gents. In the meanv:hile, as if to widen the 
 estrangement at home, Mr. Allan had taken 
 unto himself a young wife "the beautiful 
 Miss Paterson" whilst Miss Royster, forgetful 
 of her faith, was married to a wealthy man, a 
 Mr. Shelton. Once more aimless, and prob- 
 ably resourceless, the chivalric young poet 
 again sought his native province. Whether 
 he returned to the home that was home no 
 more is uncertain, but, from what is known of 
 his proud spirit, it seems unlikely; if he did, 
 however, his stay was of short duration, and 
 his godfather's second wife having given birth 
 to a son was the death-blow to Poe's prospects 
 of succeeding to the property. 
 
 Bankrupt in nearly everything, the unfortu- 
 nate poet now turned to literature as a means 
 of obtaining subsistence, but he found the 
 waters of Helicon were anything but Pactolian. 
 Where he wandered, and what he did, for 
 nearly two years, still remains, an unraveled 
 mystery, but it is alleged that some of his fin-
 
 MEMOIR. 23 
 
 est stories were written during this epoch, and, 
 although accepted and published by magazine 
 editors, were scarcely ever paid for. In 1833 
 he is heard of in Baltimore competing for 
 prizes offered by the proprietor of the Satur- 
 day Visitor for the best prose story and the 
 best poem. Here, then, was an opportunity 
 of deferring, for a while at least, the starva- 
 tion which was not far off. For the competi- 
 tion, Poe selected and sent in six of his stories, 
 and his poem of "The Coliseum.'* Some 
 v/ell-known literary men consented to adjudi- 
 cate upon the mass of papers received, and 
 after a careful consideration of the various 
 contributions, decided unanimously that Poe, 
 who was unknown to them, was entitled to 
 both premiums. 
 
 Not contented with this award, the adjudi- 
 cators even went out of their way to draw up 
 and publish the following flattering critique on 
 the merits of the writings submitted by Poe: 
 
 "Amongst the prose articles were many of various 
 and distinguished merit, but the singular force and 
 beauty of those sent by the author of 'the Tales of the 
 Folio Club,' leave us no room for hesitation in that de- 
 partment. We have accordingly awarded the premium 
 to a tale entitled the 'MS. found in a bottle.' It would 
 hardly be doing justice to the writer of this collection to 
 say that the tale we have chosen is the best of the six 
 offered by him. We cannot refrain from saying that the 
 author owes it to his own reputation, as well as to the 
 gratification of the community to publish the entire vol- 
 ume ('Tales of the Folio Club'). These tales are emi- 
 nently distinguished by a wild, vigorous, and poetical
 
 24 MEMOIR. 
 
 imagination, a rich style, a fertile invention, and varied 
 
 and curious learning. 
 
 "JOHN P. KENNEDY, 
 "J. H. B. LATROBE, and 
 "JAMES H. MILLER." 
 
 Griswold tells the story of the award thus : 
 
 "Such matters are usually disposed of in a very off- 
 hand way. Committees to award literary prizes drink 
 to the payer's health in good wines over unexamined 
 MSS., which they submit to the discretion of publishers, 
 with permission to use their names in such a way as to 
 promote the publisher's advantage. So, perhaps, it 
 would have been in this case, but that one of the com- 
 mittee taking up a little book remarkably beautiful and 
 distinct in calligraphy, was tempted to read several 
 pages; and becoming interested, he summoned the 
 attention of the company to the half-dozen compositions 
 it contained. It wa unanimously decided that the 
 prizes should be p d to 'the first of the geniuses who 
 had written legibly.' Not another MS. was unfolded. 
 Immediately the 'con dential envelope' was opened, 
 and the successful competitor was found to bear the 
 scarcely known name of Poe." 
 
 The above report, which was published on 
 the 1 2th of October, 1833, is of itself a com- 
 plete disproof of Griswold's dishonoring accu- 
 sation against the committee of having awarded 
 the prizes to Poe because of his beautiful hand- 
 writing, without looking at a single MS. of 
 any other competitor. When the story, it may 
 be added, was brought to the notice of Mr. 
 Latrobe and the honorable John P. Kennedy', 
 the two surviving adjudicators, they at once 
 denied its truth. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy, the well-known author, was 
 so interested in the successful but unknown
 
 MEMOIR. 25 
 
 competitor, that he invited him to his house, 
 and Poe's response, written in his usual 
 beautiful and distinct caligrnphy, proves the 
 depth of misery to which he had sunk. How 
 his heart bled to pen these lines few can prob- 
 ably imagine: 
 
 "Your invitation to dinner has wounded me 
 to the quick. I cannot come for reasons of 
 the most humiliating nature my personal 
 appearance. You may imagine my mortifica- 
 tion in making this disclosure to you, but it is 
 necessary." 
 
 Urged by the noblest feelings, Mr. Kennedy 
 at once sought out the unfortunate youth, and 
 found him, as he declares, almost starving. 
 Poe's wretched condition inspired the unselfish 
 author with pity, as his genius did with admi- 
 ration, and from henceforth he became his 
 firm friend. It is interesting to learn that to 
 the last Poe retained his benefactor's friend- 
 ship and respect, as Mr. Kennedy acknowl- 
 edged when informed of the poet's decease; 
 and no better disproof of the calumnies heaped 
 by Griswold on the dead man's head could be 
 given, than by repeating the testimonies of all 
 those with whom Poe lived and labored. So 
 far from contenting himself with mere cour- 
 tesies, Mr. Kennedy assisted his new protegg 
 to re-establish himself in the outward garb of 
 respectability, and in many respects treated 
 him more like a dear relative than a chance 
 acquaintance. In his diary he records, "I 
 gave him clothing, free access to my table, and 
 the use of a horse for exercise whenever he
 
 26 MEMOIR. 
 
 chose} in fact, brought him up from the very 
 verge of despair. ' ' Aided by such a friend, 
 Poe's affairs could not but mend. 
 
 In the spring of 1834, Mr. Allan died, and if 
 his god-son still retained any expectations of 
 inheriting any portion of his wealth he was at 
 last undeceived, as, in the language of Gris- 
 wold, "not a mill was bequeathed to Poe." 
 In August of this same year, a Mr. White, an 
 energetic and accomplished man, in opposition 
 to the advice of his friends, commenced the 
 publication of the Southern Literary Messen- 
 ger, in Richmond, Virginia. This magazine 
 was a very daring speculation at such a time 
 and place, and but for a fortunate accident 
 might have placed its promoter completely 
 hors de combat. Amongst the well-known writ- 
 ers whose aid he solicited was Mr. Kennedy, 
 and he, being fully engaged, advised Poe to 
 send something. Our poet did so, and Mr. 
 White, greatly pleased with his contributions, 
 spoke of them in very flattering terms, in 
 March, 1835, publishing "Berenice. " Hence- 
 forth Poe became a regular monthly contribu- 
 tor to the Messenger. Mr. Kennedy had now 
 had a year and a half's experience of Poe, 
 without finding anything in his conduct to 
 alter the good opinion he had formed of him, 
 and the following letter is quoted by Griswold 
 as having been written at this period by Mr. 
 Kennedy to Mr. White. As it is apparently 
 authentic, we quote it: 
 
 "DEAR SIR- 
 
 "BALTIMORE, April 13, 1835. 
 .Poe did right in referring to me. He i
 
 MEMOIR. 27 
 
 very clever with his pen classical and scholarlike. He 
 wants experience and direction, but I have no doubt he 
 can be made very useful to you. And, poor fellow ! he 
 is very poor. I told him to write something for every 
 number of your magazine, and that you might find it to 
 
 S)ur advantage to give him some permanent employ, 
 e has a volume of very bizarre tales in the hands of 
 
 , in Philadelphia, who for a year past has been 
 
 promising to publish them. This young fellow is highly 
 imaginative, and a little given to the terrific. He is at 
 work upon a tragedy, but I have turned him- to drudg- 
 ing upon whatever may make money, and I have no 
 doubt you and he will find your account in each other." 
 
 Mr. White undoubtedly found his "account" 
 in his new contributor, and every month 
 called the attention of his readers to the 
 beauties of the current tale by the young 
 author. 
 
 In the June number of the magazine ap- 
 peared Poe's tale of "Hans Pfaall," and three 
 weeks later there appeared in the New York 
 Sun, Mr. Locke's famous "Moon Hoax" story. 
 Griswold alludes to the former being "in some 
 respects very similar to Mr. Locke's celebrated 
 account," in a way to make his readers be- 
 lieve our poet the copier instead of the copied. 
 Poe's reputation was now increasing so rapidly 
 that Mr. White became desirous of retaining 
 his services exclusively for his magazine, and 
 having sounded his contributor, and found him 
 only too willing, engaged him to assist in the 
 editorial duties of the Messenger at a salary of 
 about one hundred guineas (520 dollars) per 
 annum. In consequence of this appointment 
 Poe at once removed from Baltimore to Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, where the magazine was pub-
 
 28 MEMOIR. 
 
 lished. Griswold, in order to suit dates to one 
 of his allegations against Poe, states that he 
 was appointed editor of the Messenger in May, 
 whereas he only became assistant editor in 
 September, and did not assume the full control 
 of the publication until December, 1835. The 
 unfavorable notice of Mr. Laughton Osborne's 
 "Confessions of a Poet," which appeared in 
 the April number, and which Griswold, in 
 order to support his charge of inconsistency, 
 ascribed to Poe, was obviously never written 
 by the poet at all. Its style is a sufficient dis- 
 proof of the allegation. The following letter, 
 which Poe wrote to his friend Kennedy to tell 
 him of his appointment on the Messenger, 
 affords a sad picture of the terrible melancholia 
 under which the poet so frequently suffered 
 an affliction not merely the result of privations 
 and grief, but undoubtedly, to some extent, 
 inherited : 
 
 "RICHMOND, September n, 1835. 
 "DEAR SIR I received a letter from Dr. Miller, in 
 which he tells me you are in town. I hasten, therefore, 
 to write you, and express by letter what I have always 
 found it impossible to express orally my deep sense of 
 gratitude for your frequent and ineffectual assistance 
 and kindness. Through your influence Mr. White has 
 been induced to employ me in assisting him with the 
 editorial duties of his magazine, at a salary of five hun- 
 dred and twenty dollars per annum. The situation is 
 agreeable to me for many reasons, but, alas ! it appears 
 to me that nothing can give me pleasure or the slightest 
 gratification. Excuse me, my dear sir, if in this letter 
 you find much incoherency. My feelings at this moment 
 are pitiable indeed. I am suffering under a depression 
 of spirits such as I have never felt before. I have 
 struggled in vain against the influence of this melan-
 
 MEMOIK; ' 29 
 
 choly; you will believe me when I say that I am still 
 miserable in spite of the great improvement in my cir- 
 cumstances. I say you will believe me, and for this 
 simple reason, that a man who is writing for effect does 
 not write thus. My heart is open before you; if it be 
 worth reading, read it. I am wretched and know not 
 why. Console me for you can. But let it be quickly, 
 or it will be too late. Write me immediately; convince 
 me that it is worth one's while that it is at all necessary 
 to live, and you will prove yourself indeed my friend. 
 Persuade me to do what is right. I do mean this. I 
 do not mean that you should consider what I now write 
 you a jest. Oh, pity me ! for I feel that my words are 
 incoherent; but I will recover myself. You will not fail 
 to see that I am suffering under a depression of spirits 
 which will ruin me should it be long continued. Write 
 me then and quickly; urge me to do what is right. 
 Your words will have more weight with me than the 
 words of others, for you were my friend when no one 
 else was. Fail not, as you value your peace of mind 
 hereafter. E. A. POE." 
 
 To this wail of despair Mr. Kennedy sent the 
 following kindly if commonplace reply: 
 
 "I am sorry to see you in such a plight as your 
 letter shows you in. It is strange that just at this time, 
 when everybody is praising you, and when fortune is 
 beginning to smile upon your hitherto wretched circum- 
 stances, you should be invaded by these blue devils. It 
 belongs, however, to your age and temper to be thus 
 buffeted but be assured, it only wants a little resolu- 
 tion to master the adversary forever. You will doubt- 
 less do well henceforth in literature, and add to your 
 comforts, as well as to your reputation, which it gives 
 me pleasure to assure you is everywhere rising in pop- 
 ular esteem." 
 
 Notwithstanding his "blue devils," as Mr. 
 Kennedy styled it, the new editor worked won- 
 ders with the Messenger. "His talents made 
 that periodical quite brilliant while he was
 
 30 MEMOIR. 
 
 connected with it," records this friend, and 
 indeed in little more than a twelvemonth Poe 
 raised its circulation from seven hundred to 
 nearly five thousand. This success was par- 
 tially due to the originality and fascination of 
 Poe's stories, and partially owing to the fear- 
 lessness of his trenchant critiques. He could 
 not be made, either by flattery or abuse, a re- 
 specter of persons. In the December number of 
 the Messenger he began that system of literary 
 scarification that crucial dissection of book- 
 making mediocrities, which, whilst it created 
 throughout the length and breadth of the 
 States a terror of his powerful pen, at the same 
 time raised up against him a host of implaca- 
 ble, though unknown, enemies, who were only 
 too glad, from that time, to seize upon and 
 repeat any story, however improbable, to his 
 discredit. Far better would it have been for 
 his future welfare if, instead of affording con- 
 temporary nonentities a chance of literary im- 
 mortality by impaling them upon his pen's 
 sharp point, he had devoted his whole time to 
 the production of his wonderful stories, or still 
 more wonderful poems. Why could he not 
 have left the task of crushing or puffing the 
 works of his Liliputian contemporaries to the 
 ordinary "disappointed authors?" 
 
 During the whole of 1836 Poe devoted his 
 entire attention to the Messenger, producing 
 tales, poems, essays, and reviews in profusion, 
 indeed, apparently at Mr. White's suggestion, 
 frittering away his genius over these last. 
 Early in the year a gleam of hope seemed to
 
 MEMOIR. 81 
 
 break in upon his checkered career. In Rich- 
 mond, once more among his kindred, he met 
 and married his cousin, Virginia, the daughter 
 of his father's sister, Maria. Miss Clemm was 
 but a girl in years, and already manifested 
 symptoms of the family complaint, consump- 
 tion, but, undeterred by this or by his slender 
 income, the poor poet was married to his kins- 
 woman, and, it must be confessed, in happier 
 circumstances, a better helpmate could scarcely 
 have been found for him, while the marriage 
 had the further advantage of bringing him 
 under the motherly care of his aunt, Mrs. 
 Clemm. Until January, 1837, Poe continued 
 the direction of the Messenger, when he left it 
 for the more lucrative employment of assisting 
 Professors Anthon, Hawks and Henry in the 
 management of the New York Quarterly Re- 
 view, and, probably, to aid the first in his clas- 
 sical labors a work for which his scholarly 
 attainment rendered him invaluable. Mr. 
 White parted with Poe very reluctantly, and 
 in the number of the Messenger which con- 
 tained the announcement of Poe's resignation, 
 issued a note to the subscribers, wherein, after 
 alluding to the abjlity with Which the retiring 
 editor had conducted the magazine, he re- 
 marked: "Mr. Poe, however, will continue to 
 furnish its columns from time to time with the 
 effusions of his vigorous and popular pen." 
 We dwell upon this incident, and upon the 
 fact, more than once acknowledged by Mr. 
 White, that Poe resigned for other employ-
 
 32 MEMOIR. 
 
 ment, because Griswold expressly declares 
 that he was dismissed for drunkenness. 
 
 From Richmod, Poe removed to New York, 
 where he and his household resided in Carmine 
 Street. In his writing for the New York 
 Quarterly Review, says Mr. Powell, * 4 he came 
 down pretty freely with his critical ax, and 
 made many enemies." These reviews display 
 his immense learning, and the extraordinary 
 range of subjects with which he was convers- 
 ant, but it is impossible to peruse them with- 
 out grieving at the loss literature sustained by 
 his dissipating his powers over such ephemera. 
 The late Mr. William Gowans, the wealthy 
 and respected, but eccentric bibliopolist, of 
 New York, has left us a most interesting pict- 
 ure of the poet's menage at this period of his 
 story. Alluding to the untruthfulness of the 
 prevalent idea of Poe's character, the shrewd 
 old man remarks, "I, therefore, will also show 
 you my opinion of this gifted but unfortunate 
 genius. It may be estimated as worth little, 
 but it has this merit it comes from an eye 
 and ear witness; and this, it must be remem- 
 bered, is the very highest of legal evidence. 
 For eight months or more one house contained 
 us, one table fed! During that time I saw 
 much of him, and had an opportunity of con- 
 versing with him often, and I must say that I 
 never saw him the least affected with liquor, 
 nor even descend to any known vice, while he 
 was one of the most courteous gentlemanly, 
 and intelligent companions I have met with 
 during my journeyings and haltings through
 
 MEMOIR. 35 
 
 divers divisions of the globe ; besides, he had 
 an extra inducement to be a good man as well 
 as a good husband, for he had a wife of match- 
 less beauty and loveliness; her eyes could 
 match that of any houri, and her face defy the 
 genius of a Canova to imitate ; a temper and 
 disposition of surpassing sweetness; besides, 
 she seemed as much devoted to him and his 
 every interest as a young mother is to her 
 first born. . . . Poe had a remarkably pleas- 
 ing and prepossessing countenance, what the 
 ladies would call decidedly handsome." 
 
 Through the courtesy of a correspondent we 
 are permitted to extract the following addi- 
 tional testimony from a private letter written 
 by Mr. Thomas C. Latto, a friend of Mr. 
 Gowans, on the 8th July, 1870. "In con- 
 versation with William Gowans," says Mr. 
 Latto, "he told me that he was a boarder in 
 the house of Mrs. Clemm. . . . Mr. Poe and 
 his young wife, whom Mr. G. describes as 
 fragile in constitution but of remarkable 
 beauty, boarded at that time with Mrs. Clemm. 
 They were in poor circumstances. Mr. 
 Gowans lived with them several months, and 
 he was often consulted by Mrs. Clemm as to 
 the ways and means, as the boarding-house 
 business did not pay. He only left when the 
 household was broken up. Of course, Mr. 
 Gowans had the best opportunity of seeing 
 what kind of life the poet led. His testimony 
 is, that he (Poe) was uniformly quiet, reticent, 
 gentlemanly in demeanor, and during the 
 whole period he lived there, not the slightest 
 
 8 Foe's Poems
 
 34 MEMOIR. 
 
 trace of intoxication or dissipation was dis- 
 cernible in the illustrious inmate, who was at 
 that time engaged in the composition of 
 Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe kept good hours, 
 and all his little wants were seen to both by 
 Mrs. Clemm and her daughter, who watched 
 him as sedulously as if he had been a child. 
 Mr. Gowans is himself a man of intelligence, 
 and being a Scotchman, is by no means averse 
 to 4 a twa-handed crack, ' but he felt himself 
 kept at a distance somewhat by Poe's aristo- 
 cratic reserve." 
 
 4 'Mr. Gowans," remarks Mr. Latto, 4t is 
 known to be one of the most truthful and un- 
 compromising of men." 
 
 During January and February of this year 
 (1837) Poe contributed the first portions of 
 "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" to 
 the Messenger, and encouraged by the interest 
 it excited, he determined to complete it. It 
 \vas not published in book form, however, until 
 July of the following year, and although it did 
 not excite much attention in America, it was 
 very successful in England. Griswold, dis- 
 playing his usual animus, remarks, that copies 
 being sent to England, and it 44 being mistaken 
 at first for a narrative of real experiences, it 
 was advertised to be reprinted, but a discovery 
 of its character, I believe, prevented such a 
 result. An attempt is made in it," he contin- 
 ues, 44 by simplicity of style, minuteness of 
 nautical descriptions, and circumstantiality of 
 narration, to give it that air of truth which 
 constitutes the principal attraction of Sir
 
 MEMOIR. 35 
 
 Edward Seaward's narrative, and 'Robinson 
 Crusoe, ' but it has none of the pleasing inter- 
 est of these tales ; it is as full of wonders as 
 'Munchausen,' has as many atrocities as the 
 'Book of Pirates,' and as liberal array of pain- 
 ing and revolting horrors as ever was invented 
 by Anne Radcliffe or George Walker." His 
 further deprecatory remarks are not worth 
 reproducing. The fact is that in a short in- 
 terval the story was several times reprinted in 
 England, and it did excite considerable notice; 
 the "air of truth," which, it is suggested, 
 was only in the attempt, having attracted 
 much interest. 
 
 The independence which Poe had hoped to 
 earn by his pen was not obtainable in those 
 days at New York, and having prospect of 
 constant employment in Philadelphia, he re- 
 moved to that city late in 1838, and entered 
 into an arrangement to write for the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, a publication of some years' 
 standing. His talents soon produced the usual 
 brilliant effects upon this publication, and in 
 May, 1839, he was appointed to the editorial 
 management, "devoting to it," says Griswold, 
 "for ten dollars a week, two hours every day, 
 which left him abundant time for more im- 
 portant labors." What leisure his editorial 
 duties may have left was devoted to writing 
 for other publications, and as several of his 
 tales and other compositions first made their 
 appearance at this time, it is to be presumed 
 that he managed to obtain a fair livelihood. 
 Still he was not only compelled to labor con-
 
 36 MEMOIR. 
 
 tinuously and severely, but was frequently 
 forced by the res angusta domi to forsake his 
 legitimate province in literature, and turn his 
 pen to any project that offered a certain remu- 
 neration. There is a scandalous story told of 
 him by Griswold in support of his wholesale 
 denunciation of Poe as a plagiarist, and which, 
 although the accuser does not state to what 
 period of the poet's life it refers, really relates 
 to this epoch. Griswold, on the authority, he 
 asserts, of a Philadelphian newspaper, declares 
 that Poe reprinted a popular work on conchol- 
 ogy, written by the well-known naturalist, 
 Captain Thomas Brown, as by himself, "and 
 actually took out a copyright for the American 
 edition of Captain Brown's work, and omitting 
 all mention of the English original, pretended 
 in the preface to have been under great obli- 
 gations to several scientific gentlemen of this 
 city." For ten years after Poe's death this 
 vile calumny circulated unanswered wherever 
 the poet's biography was told, and although 
 many of the American literati must have 
 known the untruth of the story, no one vent- 
 ured to explain the facts until ultimately it 
 came under the notice of the . person of all 
 others best able to disprove it, which he did 
 through the columns of the Home Journal. 
 Professor Wyatt, a Scotchman of considerable 
 erudition and scientific attainments, formed 
 Poe's acquaintance, and obtained his assistance 
 in the compilation of several works on Natural 
 History; among others was a "Manual of Con- 
 chology," and to this, Poe, whose scientific
 
 MEMOIR. 37 
 
 knowledge was most comprenensive and 
 exact, contributed so largely that the publish- 
 ers were fully justified in using his popular 
 name on the title-page, although he only 
 received a share of the profits. Captain 
 Brown's "Text-Book of Concholcgy, " necessa- 
 rily bear.s some resemblance to the combined 
 work of Poe and Wyatt, from the simple fact 
 that both treatises are founded by the system 
 laid down by Lamarck, but the absurd charge 
 that one is therefore plagiarized from the other 
 can only have arisen from gross ignorance or 
 willful falsehood. About this time Poe also 
 published, as a sequence of such studies, a 
 translation and di-gest of Lemonnier's "Nat- 
 ural History," and other relative writings. 
 
 In the autumn of 1839, Poe made a collec- 
 tion of his best stories, and published them in 
 two volumes as tales of the "Arabesque and 
 Grotesque." This collection contained some 
 of his most imaginative writing, and still fur- 
 ther increased its author's reputation. It in- 
 cluded the story of "The Fall of the House of 
 Usher" a story which contains the charac- 
 teristic poem of "The Haunted Palace." 
 Griswold avers that Poe was indebted to Long- 
 fellow's "Beleaguered City" for his idea of 
 this exquisite poem, but that Poe asserted 
 Longfellow to have been indebted to him for 
 the idea. We do not believe in plagiarisms, 
 as a rule, and whether the author of "The 
 Haunted Palace" did, or did not, accuse his 
 brother bard of robbery we know not, but 
 must simply point out that Poe 's poem had
 
 38 MEMOIR. 
 
 been published long prior to Longfellow's, 
 and not "a few weeks," as Griswold says, and 
 in two different publications. The resem- 
 blance was probably purely accidental, but at 
 all events, Tennyson had worked out the same 
 idea many years previous to either in "The 
 Deserted House," published in i83o."Ligeia," 
 Poe's favorite tale, also appeared in this col- 
 lection. On a copy of this weird story, in our 
 possession, is an indorsement by the poet to 
 the effect that "Ligeia was also suggested by 
 a dream;" the "also" referring to a poem sent 
 to Mrs. Whitman, and which, he remarks to 
 her, "contained all the events of a dream which 
 occurred soon after I knew you. ' ' 
 
 Towards the close of 1840, Mr. George R. 
 Graham, owner of The Casket, acquired pos- 
 session of the Gentleman's Magazine, and 
 merging the two publications into one, began 
 the new series as Graham's Magazine, a title 
 which, it is believed, it still. retains. The new 
 proprietor was only too willing to retain the 
 services of the brilliant editor, and he found 
 his reward in so doing Edgar Poe, assisted by 
 Mr. Graham's liberality to his contributors, in 
 little more than two years raising the number 
 of subscribers to the magazine from five to 
 fifty-two thousand. His daring critiques, his 
 analytic essays, and his weird stories, follow- 
 ing one another in rapid succession, startled 
 the public into a knowledge of his power. He 
 created new enemies, however, by the daunt- 
 less intrepidity with which he assailed the 
 fragile reputations of the small book-makers.
 
 MEMOIR. 89 
 
 especially by tthe publication of his papers on 
 * 'Autography." He also excited much crit- 
 icism in literary circles by the publication of 
 his papers on "Cryptology," in which he pro- 
 mulgated the theory that human ingenuity 
 could not construct .any cryptograph which 
 human ingenuity could not decipher. Tested 
 by several correspondents with difficult samples 
 of their skill, the poet actually took the trouble 
 to examine and solve them in triumphant 
 proof of the truth of his theory. 
 
 In April, 1841, he published in Graham's 
 Magazine, tale of "The Murders in the Rue 
 Morgue," the first of a series illustrating 
 another analytic phase of his many-sided mind. 
 This story was the first to introduce his name 
 to the French public, being translated, and 
 published as an original story by Le Commerce, 
 under the title of "L'Orang-Otang;" shortly 
 afterwards it was translated again, and 
 appeared in the pages of La Quotidienne, 
 whereupon a cry was raised, a lawsuit insti- 
 tuted, and ultimately the truth discovered, that 
 Edgar Poe, an American, was the author. 
 Madam Mannier availed herself of the interest 
 created by this inquiry to translate several of 
 his stories for the French papers; whilst the 
 Revue des Deux Mondes, Revue Francaise and 
 other leading publications spoke in highly flat- 
 tering terms of the young foreigner's produc- 
 tions. This gave an impetus to his reputation 
 in France, which culminated in the faithfully 
 vraisemblant translations of Baudelaire, who, 
 indeed, spent many years of his life in an
 
 40 MEMOIR. 
 
 endeavor to thoroughly identify hi > mind \nth 
 that of his idol Edgar Poe, and who has repro- 
 duced many of his stories with but little loss 
 of vigor or originality: indeed, to the efforts 
 and genius of*Baudelaire is chiefly due the fact 
 that Poe's tales have become standard classic 
 works in France. Edgar Poe is veritably, it 
 may be pointed out, the only American writer 
 really well known and popular in France. In 
 Spain, too, Poe's tales early acquired fame, and 
 have now become thoroughly nationalized ; 
 and with the exception of works on Spanish 
 subjects, such as those by Washington Irving, 
 Prescott and Motley, are the only American 
 works known in that country. In Germany, 
 the poems and tales have been frequently 
 translated, but it is only quite recently that 
 they attaimed any widely-diffused celebrity 
 amongst the Germans. 
 
 In 1842, appeared "The Descent into the 
 Maelstrom," a tale that in many respects may 
 be deemed one of his most marvelous and 
 idiosyncratic. It is one of those tales which, 
 like "The Gold- Bug" and others, demonstrates 
 the untenabili'ty of the theory first promulgated 
 by Griswold, and since so frequently echoed 
 by his copyists, that Poe's ingenuity in unrid- 
 dling a mystery was only ingenious in appear- 
 ance, as he himself had woven the webs he so 
 dexterously unweaves. The tales cited, how- 
 ever, prove the falseness of this portion of 
 Griswold's systematic depreciation of Poe's 
 genius. They are the secrets of nature which 
 be unveils, and not the riddles of art: he did
 
 MEMOIR. 41 
 
 not invent the natural truth that a cylindrical 
 body, swimming in a vortex, offered more 
 resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with 
 greater difficulty than bodies of any other form 
 of equal bulk, any more than he invented the 
 mathematical ratio in which certain letters of 
 the English alphabet recur in all documents of 
 any length. He did not invent "The Mystery 
 of Marie Roget, " but he tore away the mys- 
 teriousness and laid bare the truth of that 
 strange story of real life. He did not invent, 
 but he was the first to describe, if not to dis- 
 cover, those peculiar idiosyncrasies of the 
 human mind so wonderfully but so clearly 
 displayed in "The Murders in the Rue 
 Morgue," "The Purloined Letter," "The 
 Imp of the Perverse," and other remarkable 
 proofs of his mastery over the mental strings 
 and pulleys of our being. 
 
 It was during his brilliant editorship of Gra- 
 ham's Magazine that Poe discovered and first 
 introduced to the American public the genius 
 of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and it was 
 whilst he held sw y over it that she contributed 
 to its- pages man^ of her shorter poems; 
 indeed, it was greatly due to Poe that her 
 fame in America was coeval with if it did not 
 somewhat precede that wo by her in her native 
 land. In May, 1841, he contributed to the 
 Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post a paper 
 belonging to Mr. Graham, and for which Poe 
 wrote- >that prospective notice of the newly- 
 commenced story of "Barnaby Rudge," which 
 drew from Dickens a letter of admiring 
 
 4 Poe'e Poems
 
 42 MEMOIR. 
 
 acknowledgment. In this notice the poet with 
 mathematical precision explained and foretold 
 the exact plot of the as yet-unwritten story. 
 Professor Wyatt, already alluded to in connec- 
 tion with the conchology story, was not only a 
 contributor of articles on natural history to 
 Graham's, but at this time, and for several 
 years, was intimately acquainted with Poe, and 
 we have his unimpeachable authority for the 
 invariable honor and purity of the poet's life 
 In November, 1842, "The Mystery of Marie 
 Roget" appeared, and about the same time Poe 
 resigned his post of joint editor and reviewer 
 of Graham's Magazine; why or wherefore was 
 never stated, but that it was not through drunk- 
 enness, as alleged by Griswold the successor 
 to Poe's editorial duties Mr. Graham's own 
 famous letter of 1850 conclusively proves. 
 Poe's idea would appear to have been to start 
 a magazine of his own, but his resignation may 
 perhaps be justly ascribed to that constitutional 
 restlessness which from time to time over- 
 powered him, and drove him from place to place 
 in a vain search after the Eldorado of his 
 hopes. The truth as to his severance from 
 Graham's, like so many of the details that 
 enshroud and confuse his life's story, was 
 probably purposely mystified by Poe, who had 
 even a greater love than had Byron of mysti- 
 fying the impertinent busy-bodies who wearied 
 him for biographical information. It was 
 shortly previous to this epoch in his life that 
 he had the misfortune to make the acquaint- 
 ance of Rufus Griswold, a man who, although
 
 MEMOIR. 43 
 
 several years Poe's junior in age, had, by many 
 years' "knocking about the world," gained an 
 experience of its shifts and subterfuges and 
 made him far more than a match for the 
 unworldly nature of our poet. According to 
 the author of the "Memoir," his acquaintance 
 with Poe began in the spring of 1841, by the 
 poet calling at his hotel and leaving two letters 
 of introduction. "The next morning," he 
 says, "I visited him, and we had a long con- 
 versation about literature and literary men, 
 pertinent to the subject of a book, 'The Poets 
 and Poetry of America,' which I was then 
 preparing for the press," and he follows up 
 this introductory interview with the quotation 
 of several letters purporting to have been 
 written by Poe, not one of which we shall refer 
 to or make use of, as there is pretty positive 
 proof that some, if not the whole of them, are 
 fabrications! The enmity of Griswold for 
 Poe "the long, intense, and implacable 
 enmity," alluded to by John Neal and Mr. 
 Graham is so palpable to readers of the 
 "Memoir," that it needed not the outside evi- 
 dence which has been so abundantly furnished 
 us to prove it, and the wonder is, not so much 
 that the biographer's audacious falsifications 
 should have obtained credit abroad, as that no 
 American should have produced as complete a 
 refutation of them as could and should have 
 been given years ago. Apart from deadly 
 enmity, aroused by a subject of a domestic 
 nature, the compiler could not forgive Poe for 
 exposing his literary shortcomings. The only
 
 44 MEMOIR. 
 
 passage in which the soi-disant biographer 
 appears to relent towards the dead poet is that 
 in which he alludes to his own visit to Poe's 
 residence in Philadelphia." "It was while he 
 resided in Philadelphia," Griswold remarks, 
 "that I became acquainted with him. His 
 manner was very quiet and gentlemanly; he 
 was usually dressed with simplicity and ele- 
 gance, and when once he sent for me to visk 
 him, during a period of illness caused by pro- 
 tracted and anxious watching at the side of his 
 sick wife, I was impressed by the singular neat- 
 ness and the air of refinement in his home. 
 It was in a smr.ll house in one of the pleasant 
 and silent neighborhoods far from the town, 
 and, though slightly and cheaply furnished, 
 everything in it was so tastefully and fitly dis- 
 posed that it seemed altogether suitable for a 
 man of genius. " On seceding from Graham's, 
 Poe seems to have endeavored to start a mag- 
 azine of his own, to be entitled The Stylus, and 
 Mr. Thomas C. Clark, of Philadelphia, was to 
 have been the publisher. The poet does not 
 appear to have been enabled to obtain a suffi- 
 cient number of subscribers to start the pro- 
 jected publication on a sound basis, and there- 
 fore the scheme fell through. Mr. Clark, who 
 is still residing in Philadelphia, speaks in high 
 terms of Poe's probity and honor, as indeed 
 does every one, save Griswold, who had deal- 
 ings with him. It is much to be regretted 
 that circumstances have prevented Mr. Clark 
 giving to the world his reminiscences and col- 
 lected facts relating to Edgar Poe,
 
 MEMOIR. 45 
 
 In the spring of 1843 the one hundred dollar 
 prize, offered by The Dollar Magazine, was 
 obtained by Poe for his tale of "The Gold- 
 Bug," a tale illustrative of and originating 
 with his theory of ciphers. As usual, Gris- 
 wold, in mentioning it, cannot refrain from 
 displaying the cloven hoof, and, knowing it to 
 be the most popular of Poe's stories in Amer- 
 ica, refers to it "as one of the most remarkable 
 illustrations of his ingenuity of construction and 
 apparent subtlety of reasoning. " During this 
 year Poe wrote for Lowell's Pioneer, and other 
 publications. In 1844 he removed to New York, 
 whither his daily increasing fame had already 
 preceded him, and where he entered into a 
 more congenial literary atmosphere than that 
 in which he had recently resided. In the cities 
 in which he had hitherto exercised his talents 
 he was continually treading upon the mental 
 corns of provincial cliques, but in New York, 
 as he now entered it, he found a neare 
 approach to metropolitanism, and therefore a 
 fairer field for the recognition of his powers. 
 "For the first time," remarks Griswold, com- 
 pletely ignoring the talent of all other American 
 cities, "for the first time he was received into 
 circles capable of both the appreciation and 
 the production of literature. ' ' It has generally 
 been assumed that the first publication he 
 wrote for in New York was the Daily Mirror, 
 but the author of a sketch of Willis and his 
 contemporaries contributed to the Northern 
 Monthly in 1868, referring to Poe as "one who 
 has been more shamefully maligned and slan-
 
 46 MEMOIR. 
 
 dered than any other writer that can be 
 named," states, "I say this from personal 
 knowledge of Mr. Poe, who was associated with 
 myself in the editorial conduct of my own 
 paper before his introduction into the office of 
 Messrs. Willis and Morris;" adding, "for Mr. 
 Willis's manly vindication of Poe from his 
 biographer's degrading accusations," he says, 
 *'Mr. Willis's testimony is freely confirmed by 
 other publishers. On this subject I have some 
 singular revelations which throw a strong light 
 on the causes that darkened the life, and made 
 most unhappy the death, of one of the most 
 remarkable of all our literary men as an Eng- 
 lish re viewer once said 'the most brilliant gen- 
 ius of his country.' " 
 
 Toward the autumn of the year Poe sought 
 and found employment as sub-editor and 
 critic on the Mirror, a daily paper belonging 
 to N. P. Willis and General George Morris. 
 
 In a letter written by Willis from Idlewild, 
 in October, 1859, to his brother poet and for- 
 mer copartner Morris, he thus alludes to Poe's 
 engagement with him: "Poe came to us 
 quite incidentally, neither of us having been 
 personally acquainted with him till that time; 
 and his position towards us, and connection 
 with us, of course unaffected by claims of pre- 
 vious friendship, were a fair average of his 
 general intercourse and impressions. As he 
 was a man who never smiled and never said a 
 propitiatory or deprecating word, we were not 
 likely to have been seized with any sudden 
 Dartialitv or wavward caprice in his favor. . . .
 
 MEMOIR. 4? 
 
 It was rather a step downward, after being the 
 chief editor of several monthlies, as Poe had 
 been, to come into the office of a daily journal 
 as a mechanical paragraphist. It was his bus- 
 iness to sit at a desk, in a corner of the edi- 
 torial room, ready to be called upon for any of 
 the miscellaneous work of the day; yet you re- 
 member how absolutely and how good-humored 
 ly ready he was for any suggestion ;how punctu- 
 ally and industriously reliable in the following 
 out of the wish once expressed ; how cheerful 
 and present-minded his work when he might 
 excusably have been so listless and abstracted. 
 We loved the man for the entireness of the 
 fidelity with which he served us. When he 
 left us, we were very reluctant to part with 
 him; but we could not object he was to take 
 the lead in another periodical." 
 
 During the six months or so that Poe was 
 engaged on the Mirror the whole of which 
 time Willis asserts 4< he was invariably punc- 
 tual and industrious," and was daily "at his 
 desk in the office from nine in the morning till 
 the evening paper went to press" during this 
 time some of the most remarkable productions 
 of his genius, including his poetic chef-d'oeuvre 
 of "The Raven," were given to the world. 
 This unique and most original of poems first 
 appeared in Col ton's American Review for 
 February, 1845, as by "Quarles. " It was at 
 once reprinted in the Evening Mirror, and in 
 a few weeks had spread over the whole of the 
 United States, calling into existence parodies 
 and imitations innumerable. Mrs. Whitman
 
 48 MEMOIR. 
 
 informs us that, when "The Raven," appeared, 
 Poe one evening electrified the gay company 
 assembled at a weekly reunion of noted artists 
 and men of letters, held at the residence of an 
 accomplished poetess in Waverley Place, by the 
 recitation, at the request of his hostess, of this 
 wonderful poem. After this, it was of course 
 impossible to keep the authorship secret. 
 Willis reprinted the poem with the author's 
 name attached, remarking that, in his opinion, 
 "it was the most effective single example of 
 fugitive poetry ever published in this country, 
 and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle 
 conception, masterly ingenuity of versifica- 
 tion, and consistent sustaining of imaginative 
 lift." It carried its author's name and fame 
 from shore to shore; drew admiring testimony 
 from some of the first of English poets, and 
 finally made him the lion of the season. And 
 for this masterpiece of genius this poem 
 which has probably done more for the renown 
 of American letters than any other single work 
 it is alleged that Poe, then at the height of 
 his renown, received the sum of ten dollars, 
 that is, about two pounds: 
 
 In the February number of Graham's Maga- 
 zine for this same year appeared a biographi- 
 cal and critical sketch of Edgar Poe by James 
 Russell Lowell. In many respects we deem it 
 the best critique on his genius that we have 
 yet seen, and although the estimate formed of 
 Poe's poetic precocity may not be perfectly 
 just, it is difficult to find fault with the admir- 
 able analyzation of his prose writings. It is
 
 MEMOIR 49 
 
 somewhat singular, however, that in the col- 
 lection of Poe's works edited by Griswold, Mr. 
 Lowell should permit the continual reprinting 
 of this critique "with a few alterations and 
 omissions," when those very omissions 
 serve to give color to one of Griswold's vilest 
 charges, that of the alleged theft of Captain 
 Brown's Conchology book. In the beginning 
 of this year the Broadway Journal was started, 
 and in March Poe was associated with two 
 journalists in its management. He had writ- 
 ten for it from the first, but had nothing to do 
 with the editorial arrangement until the tenth 
 number. One of the most noticeable of his 
 contributions was a critique on the poems of 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to whom he 
 shortly afterwards dedicated, in most admiring ' 
 terms, a selection of his poems, published by 
 Messrs. Wiley & Putman, under the title "The 
 Raven and Other Poems." About the same 
 time the same firm published a selection from 
 his prose compositions as "Tales," and another 
 firm reprinted his "Tales of the Grotesque and 
 Picturesque," so that his name was kept well 
 before the public. 
 
 Several of the stories were nov/ published in 
 an English collection, as was also "The 
 Raven." Mrs. Browning, in a private letter 
 written a few weeks after the publication of 
 the poem, says: "This vivid writing this 
 power which is felt has produced a sensation 
 here in England. Some of my friends are 
 taken by the fear of it, and some by the music. 
 I hear of persons who are haunted by the
 
 50 MEMOIR. 
 
 'Never more,' and an acquaintance of mine 
 who has the misfortune of possessing a bust of 
 Pallas cannot bear to look at it in the twilight. " 
 And then alluding to Poe's story of "Mesmeric 
 Revelations," which some English journals 
 accepted as a faithful record of facts, the 
 Poetess resumes: " Then there is a tale going 
 the rounds of the newspapers about mesmer- 
 ism, which is throwing us all into 'most 
 admired disorder' dreadful doubts as to 
 whether it can be true, as the children say of 
 ghost stories. The certain thing about it is 
 the power of the writer. " 
 
 By this time Edgar Poe had become person- 
 ally known to and admired by a large number 
 of the literati of New York, "whose interest 
 in his writings," remarks Mrs. Whitman, 
 "was manifestly enhanced by the perplexing 
 anomalies of his character, and by the singular 
 magnetism of his presence." One who knew 
 him at this period of his life, says: "Every- 
 thing about him distinguished him as a man of 
 mark; his countenance, person, and gait, 
 were alike characteristic. His features were 
 regular, and decidedly handsome. His com- 
 plexion was clear and dark ; the color of his 
 fine eyes seemingly a dark gray, but on closer 
 inspection they were seen to be of that neutral 
 violet tint which is so difficult to define. His 
 forehead was, without exception, the finest in 
 proportion and expression that we have ever 
 seen." 
 
 Edgar Poe left the Mirror to take charge of 
 the Broadway Journal, the sole management
 
 MEMOIR. 51 
 
 of which, however, did not devolve upon him 
 until July, whilst it was not till the following 
 October that he became proprietor as well as 
 editor of this publication. His confederates 
 do not appear to have invested much money 
 or talent in the undertaking, and when they 
 retired and left the poet in entire possession of 
 the publication, he would not seem to have 
 added much to his worldly goods by the acqui- 
 sition, 
 
 In March he gave a lecture on the American 
 poets in the library of the New York Historical 
 Society, and it attracted much attention, not 
 only by the originality and courage of his re- 
 marks, but by the fascination of his presence, 
 by his eloquence, and personal beauty. The 
 furore which his lecture created caused him to 
 be asked to Boston, and in the autumn he 
 accepted an invitation to recite a poem in the 
 lyceum of that city. "When he accepted the 
 invitation," avers Griswold, "he intended to 
 write an original poem, upon a subject which 
 he said had haunted his imagination for years, 
 but cares, anxieties, and feebleness of will 
 prevented, and a week before the appointed 
 night he wrote a friend imploring assistance. 
 'You compose with such astonishing facility,' 
 he urged in his letter, 'that you can easily fur- 
 nish one quite soon enough, a poem that shall 
 be equal to my reputation. For the love of 
 God I beseech you to help me in this extrem- 
 ity. ' The lady wrote him kindly, advising 
 him judiciously, but promising to attempt the 
 fulfillment of his wishes. She was, however,
 
 54 MEMOIR. 
 
 an invalid, and so failed. At last, instead of 
 pleading illness, as he had previously done on 
 a similar occasion, he determined to read his 
 poem, of 'Al Aaraaf. '" It is impossible to 
 say how much, if any, of his story is true. 
 That a poem equal to his reputation could have 
 been composed in a week, or in any length of 
 time, by Mrs. Osgood, the friend alluded to, 
 none knew better to be impossible than Poe. 
 The lady, however, died before the publica- 
 tion of the "Memoirs," therefore Griswold, 
 who was her confidant, was pretty safe in tell- 
 ing the tale. One who was present on the 
 occasion of the recitation informs us that the 
 lecture-course of the Boston Lyceum was wan- 
 ing in popularity, and that Poe's fame being at 
 its zenith, he was invited to deliver a poem at 
 the opening of the winter session. * 4 I remem- 
 ber him well," he remarks, "as he came on 
 the platform. He was the best realization of 
 a poet in feature, air, and manner, that I had 
 ever seen, and the unusual paleness of his face 
 added to its aspect of melancholy interest. He 
 delivered a poem that no one understood, but 
 at its conclusion gave the audience a treat 
 which almost redeemed their disappointment. 
 This was the recitation of his own 'Raven,' 
 which he repeated with thrilling effect. It 
 was something well worth treasuring in mem- 
 ory. " "Poe," he adds, "after he returned to 
 Mew York, was much incensed at Boston criti- 
 cism on his poem." 
 
 The poet was not probably incensed to any 
 very great extent ; but doubtless found it a
 
 MEMOIR. 53 
 
 profitable hit for his journal to make what he 
 termed a "bobbery. " A week after the lec- 
 ture, therefore, he began to comment, in a 
 tone of playful badinage, upon the remarks 
 made by some Bostonian papers with respect 
 to it. In the Broadway Journal for November 
 ist, Poe, after quoting a paragraph from a 
 paper defending him from the abuse of the 
 Boston journals, says: "Our excellent friend 
 Major Noah has suffered himself to be cajoled 
 by that most beguiling of all little divinities, 
 Miss Walters of the Transcript. We have 
 been looking all over her article, with the aid 
 of a taper, to see if we could discover a single 
 syllable of truth in it, and really blush to ac- 
 knowledge that we cannot. The adorable 
 creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about 
 us, by way of revenge for something that we 
 did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very 
 much), and for calling her *a pretty little 
 witch' into the bargain. 
 
 "The facts of the case seem to be these: 
 We were invited to 'deliver' (stand and deliver) 
 a poem before the Boston Lyceum. As a mat- 
 ter of course, we accepted the invitation. The 
 audience was 'large and distinguished.' Mr. 
 Gushing preceded us with a very capital dis- 
 course. He was much applauded. On arising 
 we were most cordially received. We occu- 
 pied some fifteen minutes with an apology for 
 not 'delivering,' as is usual in such cases, a di- 
 dactic poem a didactic poem, in our opinion, 
 being precisely no poem at all. After some 
 further words still of apology for the 'in-
 
 54 MEMOIR. 
 
 definiti veness, ' and 'general imbecility* of 
 what we had to offer all so unworthy of a 
 Bostonian audience we commenced, and, 
 with many interruptions of applause, con- 
 cluded. Upon the whole, the approbation was 
 considerably more (the more the pity, too) than 
 that bestowed upon Mr. Gushing 1 . 
 
 "When we had made an end, the audience 
 of course arose to depart, and about one-tenth 
 of them probably had really departed when 
 Mr. Coffin, one of the managing committee, 
 arrested those who remained by the announce- 
 ment that we had been requested to deliver 
 The Raven.' We delivered 'The Raven* 
 forthwith (without taking a receipt), were very 
 cordially applauded again, and this was the end 
 of it, with the exception of the sad tale in- 
 vented, to suit her own purposes, by that ami- 
 able little enemy of ours, Miss Walters. We 
 shall never call a 'woman 'a pretty little witch* 
 again as long as we live." 
 
 There is a great deal more to the same effect, 
 the whole of which Griswold reprinted in his 
 "Memoir," but we have been unable to per- 
 ceive in its good-natured bantering anything 
 objectionable, although Poe's biographer ap- 
 pears to have discovered something terrible 
 hidden in the jokes about the Bostonians and 
 their "Frog Pond," and deems "it is scarcely 
 necessary to suggest that this must have been 
 written before he had quite recovered from the 
 long intoxication which maddened him at the 
 time to which it refers." As "the time to 
 which it refers" was evidently that of the lee-
 
 MEMOIR. 65 
 
 ture, and as it was written upwards of a week 
 after that event, and as Poe renewed the dis- 
 cussion in the same tone three weeks later, 
 "the long intoxication" must indeed have been 
 an unusually lengthy one. One paragraph 
 from Poe's second notice of the affair will 
 doubtless suffice. "We know very well that, 
 among a certain clique of the Frogpondians, 
 there existed a predetermination to abuse us 
 under aay circumstances. We knew that write 
 what we would they would swear it to be 
 worthless. We knew that were we to compose 
 for them a 'Paradise Lost' they would pro- 
 nounce it an indifferent poem. It would have 
 been very weak in us, then, to put ourselves 
 to the trouble of attempting to please 
 these people. We preferred pleasing our- 
 selves. We read before them a 'juvenile,' a 
 very 'juvenile,' poem, and thus the Frogpon- 
 dians were had, were delivered up to the 
 enemy bound hand and foot. Never were a 
 set of people more completely demolished. 
 They have blustered and flustered, but what 
 have they done or said that has not made them 
 more thoroughly ridiculous? what in the name 
 of Thomas, is it possible for them to do or to 
 say? We 'delivered' them the 'juvenile 
 poem,' and they received it with applause. 
 This is accounted for by the fact that the 
 clique (contemptible in numbers as in every- 
 thing else) were overruled by the rest of the 
 assembly. These malignants did not dare to 
 interrupt by their preconcerted hisses the re- 
 spectful and profound attention of the major-
 
 56 MEMOIR. 
 
 ity. . . . The poem being thus well received in 
 spite of this ridiculous little cable, the next 
 thing to be done was to abuse it in the papers. 
 Here they imagined they were sure of their 
 game. But what have they accomplished? 
 The poem, they say, is bad. We admit it. 
 We insisted upon this fact in our prefatory re- 
 marks, and we insist upon it now, over and 
 over again." . . . 
 
 And these hurried newspaper jottings, which 
 Griswold himself admits were written when 
 Poe was suffering from "cares, anxieties, and 
 feebleness of will," and when, as he elsewhere 
 shows, the poor persecuted poet was in pecuni- 
 ary difficulties, and when, not able to pay for 
 assistance, he was obliged somehow to write 
 nearly all the journal himself; and yet, under 
 all these conflicting ills, these few jocular, 
 although overstrained, jottings are unearthed 
 and adduced as evidence of Poe's irretrievably 
 bad nature. It is a more pleasant task than 
 having to refer to such distorted views of envy, 
 hatred, and malice, to turn to the picture which 
 Mrs. Osgood gives of Poe at this point in his 
 life. "My first meeting with the poet," she 
 remarks, "was at the Astor House. A few 
 days previous Mr. Willis had handed me at the 
 table d'hote that strange and thrilling poem 
 entitled 'The Raven,' saying that the author 
 wanted my opinion of it. Its effect upon me 
 was so singular, so like that of 'weird, un- 
 earthly music,' that it was with a feeling 
 almost of dread I heard he desired an intro- 
 duction. Yet I could not refuse without seem-
 
 MEMOIR. 57 
 
 ing ungrateful, because I had just heard of his 
 enthusiastic and partial eulogy of my writings 
 in his lecture on American Literature. I shall 
 never forget the morning when I was sum- 
 moned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to 
 receive him. With his proud and beautiful 
 head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the 
 electric light of feeling and of thought, a pecu- 
 liar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and 
 of hauteur in his expression and manner, he 
 greeted me calmly, gravely, almost coldly, yet 
 with so marked an earnestness that 1 could not 
 help being deeply impressed by it. From that 
 moment until his death we were friends." 
 Again she writes of Poe "I have never seen 
 him otherwise than gentle, generous, well- 
 bred, and fastidiously refined. To a sensitive 
 and delicately-nurtured woman there was a 
 peculiar and irresistible charm in the chivalric, 
 graceful, and almost tender reverence with 
 which he invariably approached all women who 
 won his respect." 
 
 Another and still more devoted friend of the 
 fascinating poet, Mrs. Whitman, quotes the 
 opinions of "a woman of fine genius," who at 
 this time made Poe's acquaintance. 4t lt was 
 in the brilliant circles," she says, "that assem- 
 bled in the winter of 1845-46 at the houses of 
 Mr. Dewy, Miss Anna Lynch, Mr. Lawson, 
 and others, that we first met Edgar Poe. His 
 manners were at these reunions refined and 
 pleasing, and his style and scope of conversa- 
 tion that of a gentleman and a scholar. What- 
 ever may have been his previous career, there
 
 58 MEMOIR. 
 
 was nothing in his appearance or manner to 
 indicate his excesses. He delighted in the so- 
 ciety of superior women, and had an exquisite 
 perception of all graces of manner and shades 
 of -expression. We all recollect the interest 
 felt at the time in everything emanating from 
 his pen the relief it was from the dullness of 
 ordinary writers the certainty of something 
 fresh and suggestive. His critiques were read 
 with avidity; not that he convinced the judg- 
 'ment, but that people felt their ability and 
 their courage. Right or wrong, he was ter- 
 ribly in earnest." "And, " as Mrs. Whitman 
 adds, "like De Quincey, he never supposed any- 
 thing, he always knew." 
 
 This last lady, in her thoughtful work on 
 "Edgar Poe and his Critics" recounts an inci- 
 dent of the poet which occurred at one of the 
 soirees he was accustomed to attend. "A 
 lady, noted for her great lingual attainments, 
 wishing to apply a wholesome check to the 
 vanity of a young author, proposed inviting 
 him to translate for the company a difficult 
 passage in Greek, of which language she knew 
 him to be profoundly ignorant, although given 
 to a rather pretentious display of Greek quo- 
 tations in his published writings. Poe's earn- 
 est and persistent remonstrance against this 
 piece of mechancete alone averted the embar- 
 rassing test. Trifling as this anecdote may 
 appear, it is a good proof of that generous and 
 charitable disposition which those who knew 
 him only through Griswold's "Memoir," have 
 so unwarrantably denied him the possession
 
 MEMOIR. 59 
 
 of. Reverting to Mrs. Whitman's book, we 
 learn that "sometimes his fair young wife was 
 seen with him at these weekly assemblages in 
 Waverley Place. She seldom took part in the 
 conversation, but the memory of her sweet 
 and girlish face, always animated and viva- 
 cious, repels the assertion, afterwards so cruelly 
 and recklessly made, that she died a victim 
 to the neglect and unkindness of her 
 husband, who, as it has been said, 'deliber- 
 ately sought her death that he might embalm 
 her memory in immortal dirges.' " Gilfillan 
 tells us that Poe caused the death of his wife 
 that he might have a fitting theme for "The 
 Raven;" but unfortunately for the truth of 
 that reverend gentleman's theory, the poem 
 was published two years previous to the event 
 which he so ingeniously assumed it to com- 
 memorate. Friend and foe alike, who knew 
 anything of Poe, bear testimony to the unvary- 
 ing kindness and affection of the poet for his 
 youthful wife. "It is well known to those ac- 
 quainted with the parties," says Mrs. Whit- 
 man, "that the young wife of Edgar Poe died 
 of lingering consumption, which manifested it- 
 self early in her girlhood. All who have had 
 opportunities for observation in the matter 
 have noticed her husband's tender devotion to 
 her during her prolonged illness. ... It is 
 true that, notwithstanding her vivacity and 
 cheerfulness at the time we have alluded to, 
 her health was even then rapidly sinking, and 
 it was for her dear sake, and for the recovery 
 of that peace which had been so fatally imper-
 
 60 MEMOIR. 
 
 iled amid the irritations and anxieties of his 
 New York life, that Poe left the city and re- 
 moved to the little Dutch cottage in Fordham, 
 where he passed the three remaining years of 
 his life." 
 
 The labors of Edgar Poe during his posses- 
 sion of the Broadway Journal must have been 
 enormous. Week after week he wrote a large 
 portion of its folio pages himself, in addition 
 to performing the thousand duties of an edi- 
 torial proprietor the "much friendly assist- 
 ance," which Griswold, who said also that he 
 was friendless, asserts he received in his man- 
 agement of the journal, being chiefly confined 
 to the contribution of a few verses. He was 
 only able to comply with this great strain 
 upon his mental and physical strength by re- 
 printing many of his published tales and poems 
 in the columns of his paper, and even this sys- 
 tem could not have afforded very material re- 
 lief, as every article was submitted to the 
 most scrutinizing supervision, and an infinity 
 of corrections and alterations made. A jour- 
 nal of his own, in which he coald give vent to 
 his untrammeled opinions, unchecked by the 
 mercantile, and, undoubtedly, more prudential 
 views of publishers, had long been one of Poe' s 
 most earnest desires, and he attained his wish 
 in the possession of the Broadway Journal; 
 but poverty, ill-health, want of worldly knowl- 
 edge, and a sick a dying wife, all combined 
 to overpower his efforts. What could the un- 
 fortunate poet do? During the few months 
 that he had complete control of the moribund
 
 MEMOIR. 61 
 
 journal he made it, considering all things, as 
 good a cheap literary paper as was ever pub- 
 lished. All his efforts, however, were insuffi- 
 cient to keep it alive, so, on the 3d of Janu- 
 ary, 1846, the poor poet was obliged to resign 
 his favorite hobby of a paper of his own. It 
 may be pointed out that whilst in possession 
 of his journal he availed himself of the oppor- 
 tunity of displaying his almost Quixotic feel- 
 ings of gratitude tho e feelings denied him 
 by the ruthless Griswold towards all who had 
 befriended him, and n >t only to the living 
 whose aid might continue, but towards those 
 who had already entered into the "hollow 
 vale." His generous tributes to departed 
 worth are proofs of his nobility of heart, of 
 greater weight than any disproof the malign- 
 ity of Griswold would invent. 
 
 Besides the work on his own paper, Poe had 
 somehow contrived to contribute a few tales 
 and sketches to some of the magazines, and, 
 among others, to Mr. Godey's Lady's Book. 
 In the May number of this publication he com- 
 menced a series of critiques, entitled the "Lit- 
 erati of New York," "in which he professed," 
 remarks Griswold, with his wonted sneer, "to 
 give some honest opinions at random respect- 
 ing their authorial merits." These essays 
 were immensely successful, but the caustic 
 style of some of them produced terrible com- 
 motion in the ranks of mediocrity, as may be 
 seen from Mr. Godey's notes to the readers 
 respecting the anonymous and other letters he 
 receives concerning them. "We are not to
 
 62 MEMOIR. 
 
 be intimidated, " he remarks, "by a threat of 
 the loss of friends, or turned from our pur- 
 pose by honeyed words. . . . Many attempts 
 have been made and are being made by vari- 
 ous persons to forestall public opinion. We 
 have the name of one person. Others are 
 busy with reports of Mr. Poe's illness. Mr. 
 Poe has been ill, but we have letters from 
 him of very recent dates, also a new batch of 
 the Literati, which shows anything but feeble- 
 ness either of body or mind. Almost every 
 paper that we exchange with has praised our 
 new enterprise, and spoken in high terms of 
 Mr. Poe's opinion." Dissatisfied with the 
 manner in which his literary weakness had 
 been reviewed by Poe, a Dunn English or 
 Dunn Brown, for he is duplicately named, 
 instead of waiting, as Griswold did, for the 
 poet's death, when every ass could have its 
 kick at the lion's carcase, "retaliated in a 
 personal newspaper article," remarks Duy- 
 ckinck,in his invaluable Encyclopedia, and "the 
 communication was reprinted in the Evening 
 Mirror in New York, whereupon Poe instituted 
 a libel suit against that journal, and recovered 
 several hundred dollars for defamation of 
 character. ' ' 
 
 If there be any one entertaining the 
 slightest belief in Griswold's veracity, let 
 him now refer to his unfaithful account of this 
 affair in the soi-disant "Memoir," and compare 
 it with the facts of the case. He states that 
 Dunn English "chose to evince his resentment 
 of the critic's unfairness by the publication of
 
 MEMOIR. 63 
 
 a card, in which he painted strongly the in- 
 firmities of Poe's life and character. " "Poe's 
 article," he continues, "was entirely false in 
 what purported to be the facts. The state- 
 ment of Dr. English appeared in the New York 
 Mirror of the 23d June, and on the 27th Mr. 
 Poe sent to Mr. Godey, for publication in the 
 Lady's Book, his rejoinder, which Mr. Godey 
 very properly declined to print." This led, 
 asserts Griswold, "to a disgraceful quarrel," 
 and to the " premature conclusion" of the 
 Literati; and that Poe "ceased to write for the 
 Lady's Book in consequence of Mr. Godey's 
 justifiable refusal to print in that miscellany 
 his 'Reply to Dr. English.' " Poe's review 
 of "English" appeared in the second or June 
 number of the Literati, and from our knowl- 
 edge of Griswold 's habitual inaccuracy, we 
 were not surprised to find, upon reference to 
 the magazine, that the sketches ran their 
 stipulated course until October, and after that 
 date Poe still continuing a contributor to the 
 Lady's Book; nor were we surprised to find 
 Mr. Godey writing to the Knickerbocker 
 magazine in defense and praise of Poe's "hon- 
 orable and blameless conduct;" but what cer- 
 tainly did startle us was to discover that the 
 whole of the personalities of the supposed 
 critique, included in the collection of Poe's 
 works edited by Griswold, were absent from 
 the real critique published in the Lady's 
 Book! 
 
 Recoiling from such unsavory subjects, it is 
 a pleasant change to look upon the charming
 
 64 MEMOIR. 
 
 picture of the cruelly belibeled poet, and his 
 diminutive menage, as portrayed by Mrs. 
 Osgood. "It was in his own simple yet poeti- 
 cal home," she remarks, "that to me the char- 
 acter of Edgar Poe appeared in its most beau- 
 tiful light. Playful, affectionate, witty, 
 alternately docile and wayward as a petted 
 child for his young, gentle, and idolized wife, 
 and for all who came, he had, even in the 
 midst of his most harassing literary duties, a 
 kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and 
 courteous attention. At his desk, beneath 
 the romantic picture of his loved and lost 
 Lenore, he would sit hour after hour, patient, 
 assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing in an 
 exquisitely clear chirography, and with almost 
 superhuman swiftness, the lightning thoughts, 
 the 'rare and radiant' fancies as they flashed 
 through his wonderful and ever-wakened 
 brain. I recollect one morning toward the 
 close of his residence in this city, when he 
 seemed unusually gay and light-hearted. Vir- 
 ginia, his sweet wife, had written me a press- 
 ing invitation to come to them ; and I, who 
 could never resist her affectionate summons, 
 and who enjoyed his society far more in his 
 own home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity 
 Street. I found him just completing his series 
 of papers entitled "The Literati ot New York. ' 
 'See,' said he, displaying in laughing triumph 
 several little rolls of narrow paper (he always 
 wrote thus for the press), 'I am going to show 
 you, by the difference of length in these, the 
 different degrees of estimation in which I hold
 
 MEMOIR. 65 
 
 all you literary people. In each of these, one 
 of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, 
 Virginia, help me!' And one by one they 
 unfolded them. At last they came to one 
 which seemed interminable. Virginia laugh- 
 ingly ran to one corner of the room with one 
 end, and her husband to the opposite with the 
 other. * And whose lengthened sweetness long 
 drawn out is that?' said I. 'Hear her,' he 
 cried, 'just as if her little vain heart didn't 
 tell her it's herself!' ' 
 
 It was in the summer of 1846 that the poet 
 removed his dying wife to the quietude and 
 repose of the cottage at Fordham, Westchester 
 County, near New York. "Here," exclaims 
 Mrs. Whitman, in her exalted essay on "Edgar 
 Poe and his Critics" the noblest memorial 
 yet raised to the poet's memory "here he 
 watched her failing breath in loneliness and 
 privation through many solitary moons, until, 
 on a desolate, dreary day of the ensuing win- 
 ter, he saw her remains borne from beneath 
 its lowly roof. " The fullest and most interest- 
 ing account of Poe's life at Fordham is to be 
 found in the "Reminiscences" of a brother 
 author. Of his first visit to Fordham to see 
 Poe he says 
 
 "We found him and his wife and his wife's 
 mother, who was his aunt, living in a little 
 cottage at the top of a hill. There was an acre 
 or two of greensward, fenced in about the 
 house, as smooth as velvet, and as clean as 
 the best kept carpet. There was some grand 
 
 5 Foe's Poems.
 
 66 MEMOIR. 
 
 old cherry-trees in the yard that threw a mas- 
 sive shade around them. 
 
 "Poe had somehow caught a full-grown bob- 
 olink. He had put him in a cage, which he 
 had hung on a nail driven into the trunk of a 
 cherry-tree. The poor bird was as unfit to 
 live in his cage as his captor was to live in the 
 world. He was as restless as his jailer, and 
 sprang continually in a fierce, frightened way 
 from one side of the cage to the other. I 
 pitied him, but Poe was bent on training him. 
 There he stood with his arms crossed before 
 the tormented bird, his sublime trust in attain- 
 ing the impossible apparent in his whole self. 
 So handsome, so impassive in his wonderful, 
 intellectual beauty, so proud and reserved, 
 and yet so confidentially communicative, so 
 entirely a gentleman upon all occasions that I 
 ever saw him ; so tasteful, so good a talker was 
 Poe that he impressed himself and his wishes, 
 even without words, upon those with whom 
 he spoke. . . Poe's voice was melody itself. 
 He always spoke low, even in a violent discus- 
 sion, compelling his hearers to listen if they 
 would know his opinion, his facts, fancies, 
 philosophy, or his weird imaginings. These 
 last usually flowed from his pen, seldom from 
 his tongue. 
 
 *'On this occasion I was introduced to the 
 young wife of the poet, and to the mother, 
 then more than sixty years of age. She was a 
 tall, dignified old lady, with a most lady-like 
 manner, and her black dress, though old and 
 much worn, looked really elegant on her. . . .
 
 MEMOIR. 67 
 
 Mrs. Poe looked very young; she had large 
 black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of com- 
 plexion, which was a perfect pallor. Her pale 
 face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair 
 gave her an unearthly look. One felt that she 
 was almost a disrobed spirit, and when she 
 coughed it was made certain that she was 
 rapidly passing away. The mother seemed 
 hale and strong, and appeared to be a sort of 
 universal Providence for her strange children. 
 "The cottage had an air of taste and gentility 
 that must have been lent to it by the presence 
 of its inmates. So neat, so poor, so unfur- 
 nished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never 
 saw. . . The sitting-room was laid with check 
 matting; four chairs, a light stand, and a 
 hanging book-shelf completed its furniture. 
 There were pretty presentation copies of books 
 on the little shelves, and the Brownings had 
 posts of honor on the stand. With quiet ex- 
 ultation Poe drew from his side-pocket a letter 
 that he had recently received from Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning. He read it to us. It was 
 very flattering. She told Poe that his poem 
 of 'The Raven' had awakened a fit of horror 
 in England. . . He was at this time greatly 
 depressed. Their extreme poverty, the sick- 
 ness of his wife, and his own inability to write 
 sufficiently accounted for this. . . We strolled 
 away into the woods, and had a very cheerful 
 time till some one proposed a game of leaping. 
 I think it must have been Poe, as he . was 
 expert in the exercise. Two or three gentle- 
 men agreed to leap with him, and though one
 
 68 MEMOIR. 
 
 of them was tall, and had been a hunter in 
 times past, Poe still distanced them all. But, 
 alas! his gaiters, long worn and carefully kept, 
 were both burst in the grand leap that made 
 him victor. ... I was certain he had no other 
 shoes, boot, or gaiters. ... if any one had 
 money, who had the effrontery to offer it to 
 the poet?" 
 
 This same writer, becoming intimate with 
 the poet, made several visits to Fordham. 
 4 'The autumn came," he resumes, "and Mrs. 
 Poe sank rapidly in consumption, and I saw 
 her in her bedchamber. Everything here 
 was so neat, so purely clean, so scant and pov- 
 erty-stricken. . . . There was no clothing on 
 the bed, which was only straw, but a snow- 
 white spread and sheets. The weather was 
 cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills, 
 that accompany the hectic fever of consump- 
 tion. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in 
 her husband's greatcoat, with a large tortoise- 
 shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat 
 seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The 
 coat and the cat were the sufferer's only 
 means of warmth, except as her husband held 
 her hands, and her mother her feet. Mrs. 
 Clemm was passionately fond of her daughter, 
 and her distress on account of her illness, and 
 poverty, and misery, dreadful to see. 
 
 "As soon as I was made aware of these pain- 
 ful facts I came to New York, and enlisted the 
 sympathies and services of a lady whose heart 
 and hand were ever open to the poor and the 
 miserable. . . . The lady headed a subscrip-
 
 MEMOIR. 69 
 
 tion, and carried them sixty dollars the next 
 week. From the day this kind lady first saw 
 the suffering family of the poet, she watched 
 over them as a mother. She saw them often, 
 and ministered to the comfort of the dying 
 and the living. This same generous lady, 
 who, we believe, was Mrs. Lewis, better 
 known as * Stella,' subsequently, when the 
 poet died, received Mrs. Clemm into her own 
 house, and sheltered her until she could re- 
 turn to her friends in the South. " The author 
 of these "Reminiscences" concludes: **Poe 
 has been called a bad man. He was his own 
 enemy, it is true; but he was a gentleman and 
 a scholar. ... If the scribblers who have 
 snapped like curs at his remains had seen him 
 as his friends saw him, in his dire necessity 
 and his great temptation, they would have 
 been worse than they deem him to have writ- 
 ten as they have concerning a man of whom 
 they really knew next to nothing." 
 
 When this writer brought the heartrending 
 statement of the poor proud and unhappy 
 poet's circumstances without Poe's knowl- 
 edge or connivance before the world, Willis, 
 in an article in the Home Journal, made an 
 appeal to the public on the poet's behalf, sug- 
 gesting, at the same time, that his case was a 
 strong argument in favor of the establishment 
 of an hospital for poor but well-educated per- 
 sons. 'His remarks are worth repetition. He 
 says: "The feeling we have long entertained 
 on this subject has been freshened by a recent 
 paragraph in the Express announcing that
 
 70 MEMOIR. 
 
 Mr. Edgar Allan Poe and his wife were both 
 dangerously ill and suffering for want of the 
 common necessaries of life. Here is one of the 
 finest scholars, one of the most original men 
 of genius, and one of the most industrious of 
 the literary profession of our country, whose 
 temporary suspension of labor, from bodily 
 illness, drops him immediately to a level with 
 the common objects of public charity. There 
 is no intermediate stopping-place no respect- 
 ful shelter where, with the delicacy due to 
 genius and culture, he might secure aid, unad- 
 vertised, till, with returning health, he could 
 resume his labors and his unmortified sense of 
 independence. He must either apply to indi- 
 vidual friends (a resource to which death is 
 sometimes almost preferable), or suffer down 
 to the level where Charity receives claimants, 
 but where Rags and Humiliation are the only 
 recognized ushers to her presence. Is this 
 right? Should there not be in all highly 
 civilized communities an institution designed 
 expressly for educated and refined objects of 
 charity an hospital, a retreat, a home of 
 seclusion and comfort, the sufficient claims to 
 which would be such susceptibilities as are vio- 
 lated by the above-mentioned appeal in a daily 
 paper?" 
 
 This noble and suggestive article of Mr. 
 Willis, Griswold maliciously avers, was but an 
 "ingenious apology for Mr. Poe's infirmities;" 
 and then declares that the following letter, 
 which was written just before Mrs. Poe's 
 death, "was written for effect:"
 
 MEMOIR. 71 
 
 "MY DEAR WILLIS The paragraph which has been 
 put in circulation respecting my wife's illness, my own, 
 my property, etc., is now lying before me; together 
 with the beautiful lines by Mrs. Locke and those by 
 
 Mrs. , to which the paragraph has given rise, as 
 
 well as your kind and manly comments in The Home 
 Journal. The motive of the paragraph I leave to the 
 conscience of him or her who wrote it or suggested it. 
 Since the thing is done, however, and since the con- 
 cerns of my family are thus pitilessly thrust before the 
 public, I perceive no mode of escape from a public 
 statement of what is true and what is erroneous in the 
 report alluded to. That my wife is ill, then, is true ; 
 and you may imagine with what feelings I add, that 
 this illness, hopeless from the first, has been heightened 
 and precipitated by her reception, at two different 
 periods of anonymous letters one enclosing the para- 
 graph now in question, the other those published calum- 
 nies of Messrs. , for which I yet hope to find 
 
 redress in a court of justice. 
 
 "Of the facts, that I myself have been long and dan- 
 gerously ill, and that my illness has been a well-under- 
 stood thing among my brethren of the press, the 
 best evidence is afforded by the innumerable para- 
 graphs of personal and of literary abuse with which I 
 have been latterly assailed. This matter, however, will 
 remedy itself. At the very first blush of my new pros- 
 perity, the gentlemen who toadied me in the old will 
 recollect themselves and toady me again. . . . That I 
 am 'without friends' is a gross calumny, which I am 
 sure you never could have believed, and which a thou- 
 sand noble-hearted men would have good right never to 
 forgive for permitting to pass unnoticed and undented. 
 I do not think, my dear Willis, that there is any need of 
 my saying more. I am getting better, and may add, if 
 it be any comfort to my enemies, that I have little fear 
 of getting worse. The trufch is I have a great deal to 
 do, and I have made up my mind not to die till it is 
 done. ' 'Sincerely yours, 
 
 "EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 "December 30, 1846." 
 
 Animadverting upon this letter, the implac-
 
 72 MEMOIR. 
 
 able Griswold asserts, notwithstanding the 
 positive evidence to the contrary, that Poe 
 "had not been ill a great while, nor danger- 
 ously at all : that there was no literary or per- 
 sonal abuse of him in the journals ; and that 
 his friends had been applied to for money until 
 their money was nearly exhausted." As 
 already stated, a few weeks after this letter, 
 which this calumniator of the dead declares 
 "was written for "effect," the poet's wife died; 
 and in an autographic letter now before us, 
 Poe positively reiterates the accusation that 
 his wife, "my poor Virginia, was continually 
 tortured (although not deceived) by anony- 
 mous letters, and on her deathbed declared 
 that her life had been shortened by their 
 writer." In January, 1847, the poet's darling 
 wife died, and on a desolate dreary day her 
 remains were interred in a vault in the neigh- 
 borhood, in accordance with the permission of 
 its owner. The loss of his wife threw Poe into 
 a melancholy stupor which lasted for several 
 weeks; but nature reasserting her powers, he 
 gradually resumed his wonted avocations. 
 During the whole of the year the poet lived a 
 quiet secluded life with his mother-in-law, 
 receiving occasional visits from his friends and 
 admirers ; musing over the memory of his lost 
 Lenore, and thinking out the great and crown- 
 ing work of his life Eureka. An English 
 friend, who visited the Fordham cottage in 
 early autumn of 1847, and spent several weeks 
 with its inmates, described to Mrs. Whitman 
 its unrivaled neatness and the quaint simplic-
 
 MEMOIR. 73 
 
 ity of its interior and surroundings. It was, 
 at the time, bordered by a flower-garden, whose 
 clumps of rare dahlias, and brilliant beds of 
 autumnal flowers, showed, in the careful cul- 
 ture bestowed upon them, the fine floral tastes 
 of the presiding spirit. 
 
 The attention which Poe gave to his birds 
 and flowers surprised his visitor, who deemed 
 it inconsistent with the gloom of his writings. 
 Another friend, who visited the cottage dur- 
 ing the summer of the same year, describes it 
 as "half-buried in fruit-trees, and as having a 
 thick grove of pines in its immediate neighbor- 
 hood. " "The proximity of the railroad, and 
 the increasing population of the little village," 
 adds Mrs. Whitman, "have since wrought 
 great changes in the place. Round an old 
 cherry-tree, near the door, was a broad bank 
 of greenest turf. The neighboring beds of 
 mignonette and heliotrope, and the pleasant 
 shade above, made this a favorite seat. Rising 
 at four o'clock in the morning, for a walk to 
 the magnificent aqueduct bridge over Harlem 
 River, our informant found the poet, with his 
 mother-in-law, standing on the turf beneath 
 the cherry-tree, eagerly watching the move- 
 ments of two beautiful birds that seemed con- 
 templating a settlement in its branches. He 
 had some rare tropical birds in cages, which 
 he cherished and petted with assiduous care." 
 "Our English friend," continued Mrs. Whit- 
 man, "described Poe as giving to his birds and 
 flowers a delighted attention which seemed 
 quite inconsistent with the gloomy and gro- 
 
 6 Poe's Poenjs
 
 74 MEMOIR. 
 
 tesque character of his writings. A favorite 
 cat, too, enjoyed his friendly patronage, and 
 often when he was engaged in composition it 
 seated itself on his shoulder, purring as if in 
 complacent approval of the work proceeding 
 under its supervision. 
 
 "During Poe's residence at Fordham, a walk 
 to High Bridge was one of his favorite and 
 habitual recreations, ' ' remarks Mrs. Whitman, 
 and she describes the lofty and picturesque 
 avenue across the aqueduct, where, in "the 
 lonesome latter years" of his life, the poet was 
 accustomed to walk "at all times of the day 
 and night, often pacing the then solitary path- 
 way for hours without meeting a human 
 being. ' ' A rocky ledge in the neighborhood, 
 partly covered with pines and cedars, and com- 
 manding a fine view of the surrounding coun- 
 try, was also one of his favorite resorts, and 
 here, resumes our informant, "through long 
 summer days, and through solitary starlit 
 nights, he loved to sit, dreaming his gorgeous 
 walking dreams, or pondering the deep prob- 
 lems of 'the Universe,' that grand 'prose 
 poem' to which he devoted the last and most 
 matured energies of his wonderful intellect. ' ' 
 Towards the close of this "most immemorial 
 year," this year in which he had lost his cousin 
 bride, he wrote his weird monody of "Ula- 
 lume. " Like so many of his poems it was 
 autobiographical, and, on the poet's own au- 
 thority, we are informed that it was, "in its 
 basis, although not in the precise correspond- 
 ence of time, simply historical." It first
 
 MEMOIR: 75 
 
 appeared anonymously in Col ton's American 
 Review for December, 1847, as "Ulalume: a 
 Ballad," and, being reprinted in the Home 
 Journal, by an absurd mistake was ascribed to 
 the editor, N. P. Willis. Subsequently, Mrs. 
 Whitman, being one morning with Poe in the 
 Providence Athenaeum Library, asked him if 
 he had seen the new poem, and if he could tell 
 who had written it. To her surprise he 
 acknowledged himself the author, and, turn- 
 ing to a bound volume of the Review, which 
 was on a shelf near by, he wrote his name at 
 the end of the poem, and there, a few months 
 ago, a correspondent found it. The poem 
 originally possessed an additional verse, but, 
 at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, Poe sub- 
 sequently omitted this, and thereby greatly 
 strengthened the effect of the whole. The 
 final and suppressed stanza read thus : 
 
 "Said we then the two, then Ah, can it 
 Have been that the woodlandish ghouls 
 The pitiful, the merciful ghouls 
 
 To bar up our path and to ban it 
 
 From the secret that lies in these wolds 
 
 Had drawn up the specter of a planet 
 From the limbo of lunary souls 
 
 This sinfully scintillant planet 
 From the Hell of the planetary souls?" 
 
 Early in 1848, Poe announced his intention 
 of delivering a series of lectures, with a view 
 to raise a sufficient capital to enable him to 
 start a magazine of his own. In January of 
 this year he thus wrote on the subject to his 
 old and tried friend N. P Willis:
 
 76 MEMOIR. 
 
 "FORDHAM, January 22, 1848. 
 
 "Mv DEAR MR. WILLIS I am about to make an effort 
 at re-establishing myselt in the literary world, and feel 
 that I may depend upon your aid. 
 
 "My general aim is to "start a magazine, to be called 
 The Stylus ; but it would " be useless to me, even when 
 established, if not entirely out of the control of a pub- 
 lisher. 1 mean, therefore, to get up a journal, which 
 shall be my own, at all points. With this ei3d in view, 
 I must get a list of at least five hundred subscribers to 
 begin with nearly two hundred I have already. I pro- 
 pose, however, to go south and west, among my per- 
 sonal and literary friends old College and West Point 
 acquaintances and see what I can do. In order to get 
 the means of taking the first step, I propose to lecture at 
 the Society Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February 
 and, that there may be no cause of squabbling, my 
 subject shall not be literary at all I have chosen a 
 broad text 'The Universe.' 
 
 "Having thus given you the facts of the case, I leave 
 all the rest to the suggestions of your o\* n tlact and gen- 
 erosity. Gratef ully.most gratetidly, you r friend always, 
 
 "EDCAR A. POE." 
 
 This letter was speedily followc d by a pros- 
 pectus, addressed To the Public, "The Stylus; 
 a Monthly Journal of Literature Proper, the 
 Fine Arts, and the Drama. To be edited 
 by Edgar A. Poe," and from it the most 
 noticeable paragraphs are extracted: '* Since 
 resigning the conduct of the Southern Literary 
 Messenger at the beginning of its third year, 
 and more especially since retiring from the 
 editorship of Graham's Magazine soon after 
 the commencement of its second, I have had 
 always in view the establishment of a monthly 
 journal which should retain one or two of the 
 chief features of the work first mentioned, 
 abandoning or greatly modifying its general
 
 MEMOIR. 77 
 
 character; but not until now have I felt at 
 liberty to attempt the execution of this design. 
 I shall be pardoned for speaking more directly 
 of the two magazines in question. Having in 
 neither of them any proprietary right the 
 objects of their worthy owners, too, being at 
 variance with my own I found it not only 
 impossible to effect anything, on the score of 
 taste, for their mechanical appearance, but 
 difficult to stamp upon them internally that 
 individuality which I believed essential to their 
 success. In regard to the permanent influence 
 of such publications, it appears to me that con- 
 tinuity and a marked certainty of purpose are 
 requisites of vital importance, but attainable 
 only where one mind alone has at least the 
 general control. Experience, to be brief, has 
 shown me that in founding a journal of my 
 own, lies my sole chance of carrying out to 
 completion whatever peculiar intentions I may 
 have entertained. 
 
 "These intentions are now as heretofore. It 
 shall be the chief purpose of the magazine 
 proposed to become known as one wherein 
 may be found at all times, on all topics within 
 its legitimate reach, a sincere and fearless 
 opinion. It shall be a leading object to assert 
 in precept and to maintain in practice the 
 rights, while in effect it demonstrates the 
 advantages, of an absolutely independent crit- 
 icisma criticism self-sustained, guiding itself 
 only by intelligible laws of art; analyzing 
 these laws as it applies them; holding itself
 
 78 MEMOIR. 
 
 aloof from all personal bias, and acknowledg- 
 ing no fear save that of the right. 
 
 44 There is no design, however, to make the 
 journal a critical one solely, or even very es- 
 pecially. It will aim at something more than 
 the usual magazine variety, and at affording a 
 fair field for the true talent of the land, with- 
 out reference to the mere prestige cf name, or 
 the advantages of worldly wisdom. But since 
 the efficiency of the work must in great meas- 
 ure depend upon its definiteness, The Stylus 
 will limit itself to Literature Proper, the Fine 
 Arts, and the Drama." 
 
 Notwithstanding the large number of his 
 admirers, and the friendly co-operation of Mr. 
 Thomas C. Clark, who was to have been the 
 publisher, Poe found the minimum number of 
 subscribers necessary to start the magazine 
 very difficult to obtain; he therefore set about 
 his lectures for the purpose of getting 4< the 
 means of taking the first step." 
 
 The first lecture of the series was given in 
 the library of the New York Historical Soci- 
 ety; it was upon the cosmogony of the 
 universe, and formed the substance of the 
 work he afterwards published as "Eureka, a 
 Prose Poem." Mr. M. B. Field, who was 
 present, says "It was a stormy night, and 
 there were not more than sixty persons pres- 
 ent in the lecture-room. . . . His lecture was 
 a rhapsody of the most intense brilliancy. He 
 appeared inspired, and his inspiration affected 
 the scant audience almost painfully. His eyes 
 seemed to glow like those of his own 4 Raven/
 
 MEMOIR. 79 
 
 and he kept us entranced for two hours and a 
 half." Such small audiences, despite the en- 
 thusiasm of the lecturer, or the lectured, could 
 not give much material aid towards the poet's 
 purpose. Poor and baffled he had to return to 
 his lonely home at Fordham, to contemplate 
 anew the problems of creation ; or to discuss 
 with stray visitors, with an intensity of feel- 
 ing and steadfastness of belief never surpassed, 
 his unriddling of the secret of the universe. 
 
 In the early summer of 1848 we find Poe 
 delivering a lecture at Lowell on the " Female 
 Poets of America." "In an analysis of the 
 comparative merits of the New England poet- 
 esses," says the Hon. James Atkinson, who 
 attended the lecture, "the lecturer awarded 
 to Mrs. Osgood the palm of facility, ingenuity, 
 and grace ; to Mrs. Whitman, a pre-eminence 
 in refinement of art, enthusiasm, imagination, 
 and genius, properly so called ; to Miss Lynch 
 he ascribed an unequaled success in the con- 
 centrated and forcible enunciation of the senti- 
 ment of heroism and duty." Mrs. Whitman, 
 undoubtedly the finest female poet New Eng- 
 land has produced, had been first seen by Poe, 
 says Griswold, "on his way from Boston, when 
 he visited that city to deliver a poem before 
 the Lyceum there. Restless near midnight, he 
 wandered from his hotel near where she lived, 
 until he saw her walking in a garden. He 
 related the incident afterwards in one of his 
 most exquisite poems, worthy of himself, of 
 her, and of the most exalted passion." 
 
 "Meanwhile, the beautiful young widow
 
 80 MEMOIR. 
 
 lived on perfectly unconscious of the fierce 
 flame she had aroused in the poet's heart, 
 until, in the beginning of the summer of 1848, 
 about the time of the above lecture, the first 
 intimation reached her in the shape of the 
 beautiful lines, 'To Helen/ alluded to by Gris- 
 wold, commencing, 'I saw thee once once 
 only years ago. ' There was no signature to 
 the poem, but the lady was acquainted with 
 Edgar Poe's exquisite handwriting, and there- 
 fore knew whence it came. About this time 
 the poet went to Richmond, Virginia, and 
 forming the acquaintance of the late Mr. 
 James Thompson, the talented editorial pro- 
 prietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
 agreed to become a contributor to its pages. 
 Mr. Thompson, like all who knew Poe person- 
 ally, became strongly attached to him, and 
 has left some interesting reminiscences of him. 
 The poet at this period was making many in- 
 quiries about Mrs. Whitman, and speaking 
 both publicly and privately in high praise of 
 her poetry, so that at last, even before they 
 met, their names were, as Griswold truthfully 
 states, frequently associated together. One 
 day, says Mr. Thompson, Poe rushed into the 
 office of the Messenger in a state of great ex- 
 citement, sat down and wrote out a challenge 
 to Mr. Daniels, editor of the Richmond Exam- 
 iner, and requested Mr. Thompson to be its 
 bearer to the person challenged ! In explana- 
 tion of his conduct, he handed his friend a 
 paragraph cut from the Examiner, giving an 
 account of Poe's presumed engagement to
 
 MEMOIR. si 
 
 Mrs. Whitman, and making 1 some comments 
 on the lady's temerity. The enraged poet 
 said he did not care what Daniels might say 
 about him, but that he would net have the 
 lady's name dragged in. Mr. Thompson re- 
 fused to deliver the challenge, and Poe went 
 personally to see Daniels, and the result was 
 that the offending paragraph was withdrawn. 
 In September of this year, Poe, having ob- 
 tained a letter of introduction from a lady 
 friend, sought and obtained an interview with 
 Mrs. Whitman. The result of this and several 
 subsequent interviews, was the betrothal of the 
 two poets, notwithstanding the most strenu- 
 ous opposition of the lady's family. Much as 
 she revered his genius, the opposition of her 
 relatives to the match appears for a time to 
 have caused the lady to withstand the poet's 
 passionate appeals, but ultimately, as stated, 
 they were engaged. The following para- 
 graphs, from a letter written by Poe on the i8th 
 of October of this year, show how intensely he 
 could feel, and how earnestly he could express 
 his feelings as well in private correspondence 
 as in those compositions intended for the 
 public eye : 
 
 " You do not love me, or you would 
 have felt too thorough a sympathy with the 
 sensitiveness of my nature, to have wounded 
 me as you have done with this terrible passage 
 of your letter 'How often I have heard it 
 said of you, "He has great intellectual power, 
 but no principle no moral sense." 
 
 44 Is it possible that such expressions as
 
 82 MEMOIR. 
 
 these could have been repeated to me to me 
 by one whom I loved ah, whom I love ! . . 
 
 44 By the God who reigns in Heaven, I swear 
 to you that my soul is incapable of dishonor 
 that, with the exception of occasional follies 
 and excesses, which I bitterly lament, but to 
 which I have been driven by intolerable sor- 
 row, and which are hourly committed by 
 others without attracting any notice whatever 
 I can call to mind no act of my life which 
 would bring a blush to my cheek or to yours. 
 If I have erred at all, in this regard, it has 
 been on the side of what the world would call 
 a Quixotic sense of the honorable of the chiv- 
 alrous. The indulgence of this sense has been 
 the true voluptuousness of my life. It was for 
 this species of luxury that in early youth I de- 
 liberately threw away from me a large fortune 
 rather than endure a trivial wrong. 
 
 44 For nearly three years I have been ill, 
 poor, living out of the world; and thus, as I 
 now painfully see, have afforded opportunity 
 to my enemies to slander me in private society 
 without my knowledge, and thus, with im- 
 
 F unity. Althoughmuch, however, may (and, 
 now see, must) have been said to my dis- 
 credit during my retirement, those few who, 
 knowing me well, have been steadfastly my 
 friends, permitted nothing to reach my ears 
 unless in one instance, of such a character that 
 I could appeal to a court of justice for redress.* 
 ... I replied to the charge fully in a public 
 
 The Dunn-English libeL (See, ante, p. 62.) Ed.
 
 MEMOIR. 83 
 
 newspaper afterwards suing the Mirror, (in 
 which the scandal appeared, ) obtaining a verdict 
 and receiving such an amount of damages as 
 for the time to completely break up that jour- 
 nal. And do you ask why men so misjudge 
 me why I have enemies? If your knowledge 
 of my character and of my career does not 
 afford you an answer to the query, at least it 
 does not become me to suggest the answer. 
 Let it suffice that I have had the audacity to 
 remain poor, that I might preserve my inde- 
 pendence that, nevertheless, in letters, to a 
 certain extent, and in certain regards, I have' 
 been 'successful,' that I have been a critic 
 an unscrupulously honest, and, no doubt, in 
 many cases, a bitter one that I have uni- 
 formly attacked where I attacked at all 
 those who stood highest in power and influ- 
 ence; and that, whether in literature or soci- 
 ety, I have seldom refrained from expressing, 
 either directly or indirectly, the pure contempt 
 with which the pretensions of ignorance, arro- 
 gance, or imbecility inspire me. And you 
 who know all this, you ask me why I have 
 enemies. . . . Forgive me if there be bitter- 
 ness in my tone." . . . 
 
 The man who could write thus, it is impos- 
 sible not to feel, must have been sincere ; must 
 have been incapable of committing the mean, 
 the dishonoring actions, placed by an envi- 
 ous and jealous writer to his charge. 
 
 In a letter addressed to the same dear friend, 
 and dated the 24th of November, 1848, Poe 
 exhibits his pistolary powers in quite a differ-
 
 84 MEMOIR. 
 
 ent light. After certain matters of a private 
 nature, he remarks : 
 
 "Your lines 'To Arcturus' are truly beautiful. I 
 would retain the Virgilian words, omitting the transla- 
 tion. The first note leave out. 61 Cygni has been 
 proved nearer than Arcturus, and Alpha Lyrse is pre- 
 sumably so. Bessel also has shown six other stars to be 
 nearer than the brighter ones of this hemisphere. 
 There is an obvious tautology in 'pale candescent.' To 
 be candescent is to become white with heat. Why not 
 read 'To blend with thine its incandescent fire?' For- 
 give me, sweet Helen, for these very stupid and cap- 
 tious criticisms. Take vengeance on my next poem. 
 When 'Ulalume' appears, cut it out and enclose it 
 newspapers seldom reach me. In last Saturday's Home 
 Journal is a letter from M. C. (who is it?) I enclose a 
 passage which seems to refer to my lines 
 
 ' the very roses' odors, 
 Died in the arms of the adoring airs. ' 
 The accusation will enable you to see how ground- 
 less such accusations may be, even when seemingly best 
 founded. Mrs. H's book was published three months 
 ago. You had my poem about the ist of June was it 
 not? Forever your own. "EDGAR. 
 
 "Remember me to Mr. Pabodie." 
 
 The Mr. Pabodie referred to was a great 
 friend of Poe's, and as it will be necessary to 
 speak of him again, to show the terms upon 
 which the two lived, the following otherwise 
 unimportant letter is quoted : 
 
 "FORDHAM, December, '48. 
 
 "My Dear Mr. Pabodie On the principal of 'better 
 late than never,' I seize the first opportunity afforded 
 me, in the midst of cares and vexations of all kinds, to 
 write you a few words of cordial thanks for your consid- 
 erate and gentlemanly attentions to me while in Provi- 
 dence. I do hope that you will always think of me as 
 one of the most obliged and most devoted of your
 
 MEMOIR. 85 
 
 friends. Please say to Mrs. W., when you next see her, 
 that I thank her for the 'papers,' and for her prompt- 
 itude. Say, also, that perhaps Mrs. Wright is right, but 
 that I believe her wrong, and desire to be kindly re- 
 membered. The commands about post have been at- 
 tended to. Present my respects to Mrs. Allan and to 
 your father. Truly yours always. 
 
 "EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 "W. J. PABODIE, ESQ." 
 
 In the very month this letter was written 
 Poe's engagement with Mrs. Whitman came 
 to an end. The real cause of the rupture be- 
 tween the poet and his betrothed has never 
 been published, although it is to be hoped 
 that, for the sake of the much slandered dead, 
 the seal of silence will some day be broken. 
 It is impossible to impute blame to either of 
 the parties concerned, as undoubtedly the true 
 cause of the separation arose from circum- 
 stances beyond their control. According to the 
 diabolical story told by Griswold, and since re- 
 peated in nearly every memoir of the poet, on 
 the evening before what should have been 
 the bridal morn, Poe committed such druaken 
 outrages at the house of his affianced bride that 
 it was fo\ind necessary to summon the police 
 to eject him, which of course ended the en- 
 gagement. This misstatement being brought 
 under the notice of the parties concerned, Mr. 
 Pabodie wrote a direct and specific denial of it 
 to the New York Tribune, and it appeared in 
 that paper on the ;th of June, 1852. "I am 
 authorized to say,*' remarks Mr. Pabodie, who, 
 it should be mentioned, was an eminent law- 
 yer as well as a man of considerable literary
 
 86 MEMOIR. 
 
 ability, *'I am authorized to say, not only from 
 my personal knowledge, but also from the 
 statement of all who were conversant with the 
 affair, that there exists not a shadow of foun- 
 dation for the story above alluded to." The 
 same letter goes on to state that its writer 
 knew Poe well, and at the time alluded to was 
 with him daily. "I was acquainted with the 
 circumstances of his engagement, and with 
 the causes which led to its dissolution." con- 
 tinues Mr. Pabodie ; and he concludes his let- 
 ter with an earnest appeal to Griswold to do 
 all that now lies in his power "to remove an 
 undeserved stigma from the memory of the 
 departed." An honorable man would have 
 acknowledged the incorrectness of his informa- 
 tion, and have done his best to obviate the 
 consequences of his accusation. Not so this 
 biographer ; he wrote a savage letter to Mr. 
 Pabodie, threatening terrible things if he did 
 not withdraw his statement. Mr. Pabodie did 
 not withdraw, but, in another letter to Gris- 
 wold, brought forward incontrovertible proofs 
 of other falsifications indulged in by the author 
 of the "Memoir," who henceforward remained 
 discreetly silent. 
 
 During the larger portion of 1848, Poe con- 
 tinued his studies, which at this period were 
 chiefly philosophical, at his home at Fordham. 
 Beyond a few reviews, he would appear to 
 have given his whole time to the completion 
 of "Eureka," the last and grandest monument 
 of his genius. The merits of this wonderful 
 "prose poem" this is neither the time nor the
 
 MEMOIR. 87 
 
 place to discuss; and it suffices now to point 
 out that in all probability no other author ever 
 flung such an intensity of feeling, or ever be- 
 lieved more steadfastly in the truth of his 
 work, than did Edgar Pote in this attempted 
 unriddling of the secret of the universe. He 
 was wont to discuss the various knotty points 
 of *' Eureka" with a startling eloquence that 
 electrified his hearers into belief. He could 
 not submit to hear the claims of his work dis- 
 cussed by unsympathetic and incompetent 
 critics, and after it was published in book form, 
 and thus made general property, he addressed 
 this thoroughly characteristic letter to Mr. C. 
 F. Hoffman, then editor of the Literary World, 
 anent a flippant critique of ** Eureka" which 
 had appeared in the columns of that publica- 
 tion. 
 
 "DEAR SIR In your paper of July 29, I find some 
 comments on 'Eureka,' a late book of my own, and I 
 know you too well to suppose for a moment that you 
 will refuse me the privilege of a few words in reply. I 
 feel even that I might safely claim from Mr. Hoffman 
 the right which every author has, of replying to his 
 critic tone for tone, that is to say, of answering your 
 correspondent's flippancy by flippancy, and sneer by 
 sneer, but, in the first place, I do not wish to disturb 
 the 'World,' and in the second, I feel that I should never 
 be done sneering in the present instance were I. once to 
 begin. L/amartine blames Voltaire for the use which 
 he made of misrepresentations (ruses) in his attacks on 
 the priesthood ; but our young students of theology do 
 not seem to be aware that in defense, or what they fancy 
 to be defense, of Christianity, there is anything wrong in 
 such gentlemanly peccadilloes as the deliberate perver- 
 sion of an author's text to say nothing of the minor 
 indecora of reviewing a book without it, and without 
 having the faintest suspicion of what it is about
 
 88 MEMOIR. 
 
 " You will understand that it is merely the misrepre- 
 sentations of the critique in question fx> which I claim 
 the privilege of reply; the mere opinions of the writer 
 can be of no consequence to me and 1 should imagine 
 of very little to himself that is to say, if he knows 
 himself personally as well as I have the honor of know- 
 ing him. The first misrepresentation is contained in 
 this sentence: This letter is a keen burlesque on the 
 Aristotelian or Baconian method of ascertaining Truth, 
 both of which the writer ridicules and despises, and 
 pours forth his rhapsodical ecstasies in a glorification of 
 a third mode the noble art of guessing.' What I 
 really say is this: 'That there is no absolute certainty 
 either in the Aristotelian or Baconian process ; that for 
 this reason nefther philosophy is so profound as it fan- 
 cies itself, and that neither has a right to sneer at that 
 
 inductions or deductions, of which the processes are so 
 shadowy as to escape our consciousness, elude our 
 reason, or defy our capacity of expression. ' The second 
 misrepresentation runs thus: 'The developments of 
 electricity and the formation of stars and suns, lumi- 
 nous and non -luminous, moons and planets, with their 
 rings, etc., is deduced, very much according to the 
 nebular theory of Laplace, from the principle pro- 
 pounded above.' Now, the impression intended to be 
 made here upon the reader's mind by the ' Student of 
 Theology* is, evidently, that my theory may be all very 
 well in its way, but that it is nothing but Laplace over 
 again with some modifications that he (the Student of 
 Theology) cannot regard as at all important I have 
 only to say that no gentleman can accuse me of the dis- 
 ingenuousness here implied; inasmuch as, having pro- 
 ceeded with my theory to that point at which Laplace's 
 theory meets it I then give Laplace's theory in full, 
 with the expression of my firm conviction of its absolute 
 truth at all points. The ground covered by the great 
 French astronomer compares with that covered by my 
 theory, as a bubble compares with the ocean on which it 
 floats; nor has he the slightest allusion to 'the principle 
 propounded above,' the principle of Unity bemr the
 
 MEMOIR. 89 
 
 source of all things the principle of Gravity being 
 merely the Reaction of the Divine Act which irradiated 
 all things from Unity. In fact, no point of my theory 
 has been even so much as alluded to by Laplace. 1 
 have not considered it necessary here to speak of the 
 astronomical knowledge displayed in the 'stars and 
 suns' of the Student of Theology, nor to hint that it 
 would be better grammar to say that 'development and 
 formation* are, than that development and formation is. 
 The third misrepresentation lies in a foot-note, where 
 the critic says: "Further than this, Mr. Pbe's claim 
 that he can account for the existence of all organized 
 beings man included merely from those principles 
 on which the origin and present appearance of suns and 
 worlds are explained, must be set down as mere bold 
 assertion, without a particle of evidence. In others 
 words, we should term it arrant fudge. ' The perversion 
 of this point is involved in a willful misapplication of 
 the word 'principles.' I say 'willful' because at page 63 
 I am particularly carefully to distinguish between the 
 principles proper Attraction and Repulsion and those 
 merely resultant suborinciples which control the uni- 
 verse in detail. To these sub-principles, swayed by the 
 immediate spiritual influence of Deity, I leave, without 
 examination, all that which the Student of Theology so 
 roundly asserts I account for on the principles which 
 account for the constitution of suns, etc 
 
 "Were these 'misrepresentations' (is that the name 
 for them?) made for any less serious a purpose than 
 that of branding my book as 'impious,' and myself as a 
 'pantheist,' a 'polytheist,' a Pagan, or a God knows 
 what (and, indeed, I care very little, so it be not a Stu- 
 dent of Theology'), I would have permitted their dis- 
 honesty to pass unnoticed, through pure contempt for 
 the boyishness, for the turn-down-shirt-collarness of 
 their tone ; but, as it is, you will pardon me, Mr. Editor, 
 that I have been compelled to expose a 'critic* who, 
 courageously perserving his own anonymousity, takes 
 advantage of my absence from the city to misrepresent, 
 and thus vilify me, by nan 
 
 "EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 "FoiDHAM, September 20, 1848."
 
 90 MEMOIR. 
 
 During the last year of his life Poe saw 
 much of Mrs. Estelle Lewis, already alluded to 
 as "Stella,*" and he and his aunt both received 
 much kindness from that accomplished woman. 
 His exalted critique on her writings origin- 
 ally appealed in the Messenger, in 1848, and 
 in the same year he published the poem to her 
 entitled "An Enigma," but through an unfor- 
 tunate mistake he mistook her Christian name, 
 and wrought into his lines "Sarah** instead of 
 "Estelle." Lying before us, in his beautiful 
 caligraphy, is this little note announcing its 
 production : 
 
 "27th November, 1848. 
 
 "DEAR MRS. LEWIS A thousand thanks for your re- 
 peated kindness, and above all for the comforting and 
 cheering wortls of your note. Your advice I feel as a 
 command which neither my heart nor my reason would 
 venture to disobey. May heaven for ever bless you and 
 yours! 
 
 "A day or two ago I sent to one of the magazines the' 
 soi. net enclosed. Its tone is somewhat too light, but it 
 embodies a riddle which I put you to the trouble of ex- 
 pounding. Will you try? Your always, 
 
 "EDGAR A. POE." 
 
 The winter of 1848-49, and the spring of the 
 latter year, Poe passed at Fordham, and during 
 this time he is alleged to have written a book 
 entitled Phases of American Literature; 
 Mr. M. A. Daly states that he saw the complete 
 work, but the manuscript would seem to have 
 disappeared. After Poe's death the larger por- 
 tion of his papers passed through Griswold's 
 hands, and his manipulation of them will, 
 doubtless, account for all deficiencies and
 
 MEMOIR, 91 
 
 shortcomings. In the summer, Poe revisited 
 Richmond, and spent between two and three 
 months there, during which time he delivered 
 two lectures, in the Exchange Concert-Room, 
 on "The Poetic Principle." 
 
 "When in Richmond," says Mr. Thompson, 
 "he made the office of the Messenger a place 
 of frequent resort. His conversation was 
 always attractive, and at times very brilliant. 
 Among modern authors his favorite was 
 Tennyson, and he delighted to recite from 
 'The Princess,' the song, 'Tears, idle Tears' 
 and a fragment of which 
 
 " 'When unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square,' "^ 
 
 he pronounced unsurpassed by any image 
 expressed in writing." For Mr. Thompson, 
 whom he inspired with an affection similar to 
 that with which he inspired all with whom he 
 had personal dealings, he wrote a quantity of 
 his sparkling and vivid "Marginalia," as well 
 as reviews of "Stella" (Mrs. Lewis) and of 
 Mrs. Osgood. To his probity and general 
 worth, Mr. Thompson, who undoubtedly saw 
 more of him in his latter days than any person 
 not a relative, bears affectionate testimony. 
 Writing to Mr. James Wood Davidson, in 1853, 
 he remarks: "Two years ago I had a long 
 conversation in Florence with Robert and 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning concerning Poe. 
 The two poets, like yourself, had formed an 
 ardent and just admiration of the author of 
 'The Raven,' and feel a strong desire to see
 
 92 MEMOIR. 
 
 his memory vindicated from moral aspersion." 
 Unfortunately the vindication has been slower 
 than the aspersion to make its way in the 
 world. 
 
 The poet had not been long in Richmond on 
 this occasion of his final visit before it was 
 rumored that he was engaged to the love of 
 his youth, Mrs. Shelton, who was now a 
 widow. He never alluded in any way to such 
 an engagement to his friend Mr. Thompson, 
 intimate as he was with him, but there would 
 appear to have been some truth in the report, 
 and on the news of Poe's death Mrs. Shelton 
 went into mourning for him. On the 4th of 
 October he left Richmond by train, with the 
 intention, it is supposed, of going to Fordham 
 to fetch Mrs. Clemm Before his departure he 
 complained to a friend of indisposition, of 
 chilliness and exhaustion, but, notwithstand- 
 ing, determined to undertake the journey. 
 He left the train at Baltimore, and some hours 
 later was discovered in the street insensible. 
 How he had been taken ill no one really 
 knows, and all the absurd reports circulated 
 about his last moments were absolute inven- 
 tions. He was dying when found, and, being 
 unknown, was taken at once to the Hospital, 
 where he died on Sunday the yth of October, 
 1849, of inflammation of the "brain, insensible, 
 it is supposed, to the last. The following day 
 he was buried in the burial ground of West- 
 minster Church, close by the grave of his 
 grandfather, General David Poe. No stone 
 marks the spot where he lies.
 
 MEMOIR. 93 
 
 In telling the true story of this poet's life it 
 is impossible to utterly ignore the fact a fact 
 of which his enemies have made so much 
 that towards the close of his melancholy career, 
 sorrow and chronic pecuniary embarrassment 
 drove him to the use of stimulants, as afford- 
 ing the only procurable nepenthe for his 
 troubles. "A less delicate organization than 
 his," remarks one of his acquaintances, 
 "might have borne without injury what to 
 him was maddening." "I have absolutely no 
 pleasure in the stimulants in which I some- 
 times so madly indulge, " he wrote some months 
 before his death to a dear friend who tried to 
 hold forth a saving hope. "It has not been in 
 the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life 
 and reputation and reason. It has been in 
 the desperate attempt to escape from tortur- 
 ing memories memories of wrong and in- 
 justice and imputed dishonor from a sense of 
 insupportable loneliness and a dread of some 
 strange impending doom." There is no ne- 
 cessity for us to touch heavily upon this terrible 
 trait in the character of Edgar Poe this sad 
 sickening infirmity of his "lonesome latter 
 years;" his error, if such it may be styled 
 the impulse which blindly impelled him to his 
 destruction injured no one but himself; and 
 certainly, no one before or since has suffered 
 so severely in character in consequence of it. 
 Burns, Goethe, Byron, and other children of 
 genius have erred far worse than Poe ever did, 
 inasmuch as their derelictions injured others, 
 but with them the world has dealt leniently,
 
 94 MEMOIR. 
 
 accepting their genius as a compensation. 
 But for poor Edgar Poe, who wronged no one 
 but himself, the world, misled greatly it is 
 true as to his real character, has hitherto had 
 no mercy. But the true story of his life has 
 now been told ; henceforth let him be judged 
 justly ; henceforth let his few errors be forgot- 
 ten, and to his name be assigned that place 
 which is due to it in the glory-roll of fame. 
 
 The history of Edgar Allan Poe can scarcely 
 be said to have ended with his life. Two days 
 after his death a cruel deprecatory notice of his 
 life and works appeared in the New York Trib- 
 une, and this notice, which was signed "Lud- 
 wig," after declaring that the poet's decease 
 "will startle many, but few will be grieved by 
 it,*' as 4< he had few or no friends," proceeds 
 to furnish a sketch of Poe's life, taken pro- 
 fessedly from Gris wold's "Poets and Poetry of 
 America." Thanks to N. P. Willis, it trans- 
 pired that this notice was by Griswold himself 
 he was the pseudonymous "Ludwig. " The 
 papers were immediately flooded with disproofs 
 of this characterization of Poe, and friend after 
 friend came forward to defend the dead man 
 against his assailant. Willis led the van with 
 his well-known and already alluded to paper, 
 in which he recorded his own personal knowl- 
 edge of Edgar Poe, derived from five years' 
 intimate acquaintanceship. Mr. George R. 
 Graham, the originator and proprietor of the 
 well-known Graham's Magazine, next pro- 
 ceeded to denounce, in what Griswold styles 
 *'a sophomorical and trashy, but widely circu-
 
 MEMOIR. 95 
 
 lated letter, the notice as "an immortal in- 
 famy," and probably knowing 1 better than any 
 one else the position which his rival editors 
 stood in with respect to one another, declared 
 it to be the "fancy sketch of a perverted jaun- 
 diced vision. " John Neal also came forward 
 to assert that it was "false and malicious," 
 and its author a "calumniator," between 
 whom and Poe existed "a long, intense, and 
 implacable enmity," that utterly disqualified 
 Griswold for the post of the poet's biographer. 
 Undaunted by the outcry he had created, Gris- 
 wold proceeded to the manufacture of that 
 masterpiece of envy, hatred, and malice, 
 which, under the title of a "Memoir of Edgar 
 Poe," he attempted to foist upon the world 
 as a truthful life of America's greatest and 
 most original genius. Doubted, refuted, and 
 condemned, as it has been in America, where 
 Griswold's own disreputable career was but 
 too notorious to be ignored, the soi-disant 
 "Memoir" still remains even there the only 
 story of Poe's life, whilst in Europe it has been 
 unwittingly and almost universally accepted 
 as the truth. In France, indeed, it has been 
 attacked by Baudelaire, who pointed out its 
 author's evident animosity to Poe; and in 
 England, Mr. Moy Thomas drew attention to 
 the fact that portraitures of Poe, less repulsive 
 than that given by Griswold, were in exist- 
 ence ; as a rule, however, it has been received 
 as a faithful story. 
 
 In the preceding "Memoir" an attempt has 
 been made for the first time to do justice to the
 
 96 MEMOIR. 
 
 poet's memory. Many of the dark stains 
 which Griswold cast upon it have been re- 
 moved, and those which remain, resting as 
 they do solely upon the testimony of an im- 
 placable enemy, may safely be ignored as, in 
 the mild words of Mrs. Whitman, "perverted 
 facts and baseless assumptions." 
 
 It does not come within the scope of our 
 present purpose to investigate the peculiarities 
 of Poe's genius, or to analyze the varied excel- 
 lencies of his works. There are, however, 
 some misconceptions, with regard to his liter- 
 ary labors which, founded as they almost 
 invariably are upon Griswold's authority, we 
 should like to draw attention to. Says this 
 biographer, and the remark has been fre- 
 quently copied, word for word, "Poe exhibits 
 scarcely any virtue in either his life or his 
 writings. Probably there is not another in- 
 stance in the literature of our language in 
 which so much has been accomplished without 
 a recognition of a manifestation of con- 
 science." As regards Poe's life, the world 
 can now judge anew whilst, as regards his 
 writings, we demand in what works of fiction 
 are more fully recognized and more vividly 
 portrayed the unappeasable tortures and the 
 immutable punishments of conscience, than in 
 such tales as "The Man of the Crowd," "The 
 Tell-Tale Heart," and "William Wilson" 
 the very personification of conscience itself? 
 Can any but wilful blindness affect to ignore 
 such terrible examples of a high and unavoid- 
 able retribution? Who, too, having read Poe's
 
 MEMOIR. 97 
 
 writings, can adopt Gris wold's dictum that 
 they "never display reverence or remorse." 
 No one ever expressed a greater "reverence" 
 for all that is truly great and noble than did 
 Poe, whilst, as for "remorse," it has yet to be 
 proved that that was needed in his case. With 
 Griswold's mere opinion, that Poe failed in 
 everything he attempted, we have nothing to 
 do, nor does it concern us that he deemed him 
 "not remarkably original in invention;" but 
 when he proceeds to charge him with whole- 
 sale robbery, and avers that u some of his plag- 
 iarisms are scarcely parallel for their 
 audacity," silence could not but be miscon- 
 strued. Of the instances which the biographer 
 gives of the alleged literary thefts of him 
 whom he styles "this extraordinary creature," 
 we have already examined and disproved the 
 two chief, the "Conchology" and "The 
 Haunted Palace" charges; and there only 
 remains the accusation that "the complicate 
 machinery upon which the interest depends" 
 of "The Pit and the Pendulum" is borrowed 
 from a story entitled "Vivenzio," which 
 appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. This tale 
 was published in August, 1830, and it is to be 
 wished that any one placing the slightest reli- 
 ance upon Griswold's credibility will compare 
 the two, the only similarity being due to the 
 fact that both stories derive from historical 
 record the idea of a collapsing room. Mr. Mud- 
 ford's tale of "The Iron Shroud" does not bear 
 the slightest resemblance in plot or treatment 
 to Poe's. 
 
 I Foe's Poems.
 
 98 MEMOIR. 
 
 To support a general charge of inconsistency 
 in Poe's criticisms, the implacable biographer 
 adduces two instances ; the first, referring to 
 Mr. Laughtoh Osborn, has already been re- 
 futed in our account of Poe's connection with 
 the Literary Messenger, and the second, relat- 
 ing to Mr. William A. Jones, it is quite as easy 
 to disprove. In this latter instance, Griswold 
 gives a short extract from a paper on *' Critics 
 and Criticism," in which Poe awards a few 
 words ot lukewarm praise to Mr. Jones, and 
 in opposition to this he then quotes a few 
 garbled sentences from the Broadway Journal, 
 in which the same writer is condemned in no 
 very measured terms. The story is too long 
 and too uninteresting for recapitulation, but 
 those who are sufficiently curious to learn the 
 whole truth can find it in full at pages 168 
 and 183 of the second volume of the above 
 journal: it suffices to say that Poe's published 
 opinion of Mr. Jones was consistently alike 
 upon the two occasions referred to. But it is 
 as unnecessary as it is distasteful to pursue this 
 subject further ; we have said enough to prove 
 the unreliability of Griswold's "Memoir of 
 Edgar Poe," and in conclusion will content 
 ourselves with reproducing Mr. Graham's in- 
 teresting and oft referred to letter, as the val- 
 uable and unbiased evidence of an unimpeach- 
 able witness, the employer of both Poe and 
 Griswold. It appears in Graham's Magazine 
 for March, 1850. 
 
 "Mv DEAR WILLIS: In an article of yours, 
 which accompanies the two beautiful volumes
 
 MEMOIR. '99 
 
 of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, you have 
 spoken with so much truth and delicacy of the 
 deceased, and with the magical touch of genius 
 have called so warmly up before me the mem- 
 ory of our lost friend, as you and I both seem 
 to have known him, that I feel warranted in 
 addressing to you the few plain words I have 
 to say in defense of his character as set down 
 by Mr. Griswold. Although the article, it 
 seems, appeared originally in the New York 
 Tribune, it met my eye for the first time in the 
 volumes before me. I now purpose to take 
 exception to it in the most public manner. I 
 knew Mr. Poe well far better than Mr. Gris- 
 wold ; and by the memory of old times, when 
 he was an editor of 4 Graham,' I pronounce 
 this exceedingly ill-timed and unappreciative 
 estimate of the character of our lost friend 
 unfair and untrue. It is Mr. Poe, as seen by 
 the writer while laboring under a fit of the 
 nightmare; but so dark a picture has no re- 
 semblance to the living man. Accompanying 
 these beautiful volumes, it is an immortal 
 the death's head over the entrance to the gar- 
 den of beauty a horror that clings to the 
 brow of morning, whispering of murder. It 
 haunts the memory through every page of his 
 writings, leaving upon the heart a sensation 
 of utter gloom, a feeling almost of terror. 
 The only relief we feel is in knowing that it is 
 not true that it is a fancy sketch of a per- 
 verted, jaundiced vision. The man who could 
 deliberately say of Edgar Allan Poe, in a 
 notice of his life and writings, prefacing the
 
 100 MEMOIR. 
 
 volumes which were to become a priceless 
 souvenir to all who loved him that his death 
 might startle many, 'but that few would be 
 grieved by it* and blast the whole fame of 
 the man by such a paragraph as follows, is a 
 judge dishonored. He is not Mr. Poe's peer, 
 and I challenge him before the country, even 
 as a juror in the case. 
 
 " 'His harsh experience had deprived him of all faith 
 in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the 
 numberless complexities of the social world, and the 
 whole system with him was an imposture. This con- 
 viction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally 
 unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society 
 as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his 
 intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope 
 with villainy while it continually caused him by over- 
 shots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many 
 respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer's novel of "The 
 Caxtons." Passion, in him, comprehended many of the 
 worst emotions which militate against human happi- 
 ness. You could not contradict him, but you raised 
 quick choler ; you could not speak of wealth, but his 
 cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing nat- 
 ural advantages of this poor boy his beauty, his read- 
 iness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a 
 fiery atmosphere had raised his constitutional self-con- 
 fidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to 
 admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, 
 envious bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient 
 angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant 
 cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. 
 There seemed to him no more susceptibility ; and what 
 was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing 
 of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, 
 that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but 
 no wish for the esteem or the love of the species ; only 
 the hard wish to succeed not shine, nor serve suc- 
 ceed, that he might have the right to despise a world 
 which galled his self-conceit. '
 
 MEMOIR. 101 
 
 "Now, this is dastardly, and what is worse, 
 it is false. It is very adroitly done, with 
 phrases very well turned, and with gleams of 
 truth shining out from a setting so dusky as 
 to look devilish. Mr. Griswold does not feel 
 the worth of the man he has undervalued he 
 had no sympathies in common with him, and 
 has allowed old prejudices and old enmities to 
 steal, insensibly perhaps, into the coloring of 
 his picture. They were for years totally un- 
 congenial, if not enemies, and during that 
 period Mr. Poe, in a scathing lecture upon 
 'The Poets of America/ gave Mr. Griswold 
 some raps over the knuckles of force sufficient 
 to be remembered. He had, too, in the exer- 
 cise of his functions as critic, put to death 
 summarily the literary reputation of some of 
 Mr. Griswold's best friends; and their ghosts 
 cried in vain for him to avenge them during 
 Poe's lifetime and it almost seems as if the 
 present hacking at the cold remains of him 
 who struck them down is a sort of compensa- 
 tion for duty long delayed for reprisal long 
 desired but deferred. ' But without this the 
 opportunities afforded Mr. Griswold to esti- 
 mate the character of Poe occurred, in the 
 main, after his stability had been wrecked, his 
 whole nature in a degree changed, and with 
 all his prejudices aroused and active. Nor do 
 I consider Mr. Griswold competent with all 
 the opportunities he may have cultivated or 
 acquired to act as his judge to dissect that 
 subtle and singularly fine intellect to probe 
 the motives and weigh the actions of that
 
 102 MEMOIR. 
 
 proud heart. His whole nature that distinc- 
 tive presence of the departed which now stands 
 impalpable, yet in strong outline before me, 
 as I knew him and felt him to be eludes the 
 rude grasp of a mind so warped and uncon- 
 genial as Mr. Griswold's. 
 
 "But it may be said, my dear Willis, that 
 Mr. Poe himself deputed him to act as his 
 literary executor, and that he must have felt 
 some confidence in his ability at least if not 
 in his integrity to perform the functions im- 
 posed with discretion and honor. I do not 
 purpose, now, to enter into any examination 
 of the appo-intment of Mr. Griswold nor of 
 the wisdom of his appointment to the solemn 
 trust of handing the fair fame of the deceased 
 unimpaired to that posterity to which the 
 dying poet bequeathed his legacy but simply 
 to question its faithful performance. Among 
 the true friends of Poe in this city and he 
 had some such here there are those I am sure 
 that he did not class among villains ; nor did 
 they feel easy when they see their old friend 
 dressed out, in his grave, in the habiliments 
 of a scoundrel. There is something to them, 
 in this mode of procedure on the part of the 
 literary executor, that does not chime in with 
 their notions of 'the true point of honor. ' They 
 had all of them looked upon our departed 
 friend as singularly indifferent to wealth for 
 its own sake, but as very positive in his opin- 
 ions that the scale of social merit was not of 
 the highest that MIND, somehow, was apt to 
 be left out of the estimate altogether and
 
 MEMOIR. 103 
 
 partaking somewhat of his free way of think- 
 ing, his friends are startled to find they have 
 entertained very unamiable convictions. As 
 to his 'quick choler' when he was contradicted, 
 it depended a good deal upon the party deny- 
 ing, as well as upon the subject discussed. He 
 was quick, it is true, to perceive mere quacks 
 in literature, and somewhat apt to be hasty 
 when pestered with them; but upon most 
 other questions his natural amiability was not 
 easily disturbed. Upon a subject that he un- 
 derstood thoroughly he felt some right to be 
 positive, if not arrogant, when addressing pre- 
 tenders. His 'astonishing natural advantages' 
 had been very assiduously cultivated his 
 daring spirit was the anointed of genius his 
 self-confidence the proud conviction of both 
 and it was with something of a lofty scorn that 
 he attacked, as well as repelled, a crammed 
 scholar of the hour, who attempted to palm 
 upon him his ill-digested learning. Literature 
 with him was religion; and he, its high-priest, 
 with a whip of scorpions scourged the money- 
 changers from the temple. In all else he had 
 the docility and kind-heartedness of a child. 
 No man was more quickly touched by a kind- 
 ness none more prompt to atone for an in- 
 jury. For three or four years I knew him 
 intimately, and for eighteen months saw him 
 almost daily ; much of the time writing or 
 conversing at the same desk ; knowing all his 
 hopes, his fears, and little annoyances of life, 
 as well as his high-hearted struggle with ad- 
 Verse fate yet he was always the same pol-
 
 104 MEMOIR. 
 
 ished gentleman the quiet unobtrusive, 
 thoughtful scholar the devoted husband 
 frugal in his personal expenses punctual and 
 unwearied in his industry and the soul of 
 honor in all his transactions. This, of course, 
 was in his better days, and by them we judge 
 the man. But even after his habits had 
 changed, there was no literary man to whom I 
 would more readily advance money for labor 
 to be done. He kept his accounts, small as 
 they were, with the accuracy of a banker. I 
 append an account sent to me in his own hand 
 long after he had left Philadelphia, and after 
 all knowledge of the transactions it recited 
 had escaped my memory. I had returned him 
 the story of 'The Gold Bug,' at his own re- 
 quest, as he found that he could dispose of it 
 very advantageously elsewhere. 
 
 " 'We were square when I sold you the "Versi- 
 fication" article; for which you gave me first 
 $25, and afterwards $7 in all $32 oo 
 
 Then you bought the "Gold Bug" for - -5200 
 
 1 got both these back, so that I owed - - $84 oo 
 You lent Mrs. Clemm -12 50 
 
 Making in all $96 50 
 
 The review of "Flaccus" was 3 2^ pp., which, 
 at $4, is - - '-- ' - - - $15 oo 
 
 Lowell's poem is 10 oo 
 
 The review of Channing, 4 pp., is $16, of 
 which 1 got $6, leaving - - - 10 oo 
 
 The review of Halleck, 4 pp., is $16, of 
 which I got $10, leaving - - - 6 oo 
 
 The review of Reynolds, 2 pp. - - - 8 oo
 
 MEMOIR. 105 
 
 The review of Longfellow, 5 pp., is $20, of 
 which I got $10, leaving - - - 10 oo 
 
 So I paid in all 59 oo 
 
 Which leaves still due by me - - - $37 50 
 
 "This, I find was his uniform habit with 
 others as well as myself carefully recalling 
 to mind his indebtedness, with the fresh ar- 
 ticle sent. And this is the man who had *no 
 moral susceptibility,' and little or nothing of 
 the 'true point of honor.' It may be a very 
 plain business view of the question, but it 
 strikes his friends that it may pass as some- 
 thing as times go. 
 
 4t l shall never forget how solicitous of the 
 happiness of his wife and mother-in-law he 
 was, whilst one of the editors of Graham's 
 Magazine his whole efforts seemed to be to 
 procure the comfort and welfare of his home. 
 Except for their happiness and the natural 
 ambition of having a magazine of his own I 
 never heard him deplore the want of wealth. 
 The truth is, he cared little for money, and 
 knew less of its value, for he seemed to have 
 no personal expenses. What he received from 
 me in regular monthly installments went 
 directly into the hands of his mother-in-law 
 for family comforts and twice only I remem- 
 ber his purchasing some rather expensive lux- 
 uries for his house, and then he was nervous 
 to the degree of misery until he had, by extra 
 articles, covered what he considered an impru- 
 dent indebtedness. His love for his wife was 
 
 $ Foe's Foems.
 
 106 MEMOIR. 
 
 a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of 
 beauty which he felt was fading- before his 
 eyes. I have seen him hovering around her 
 when she was ill, with all the fond fear and 
 tender anxiety of a mother of her first-born 
 her slightest cough causing him a shudder, a 
 heart-chill that was visible. I rode out one 
 summer evening with them, and the remem- 
 brance of his watchful eyes, eagerly bent upon 
 the slightest change of hue in that loved face, 
 haunts me yet as the memory of a sad strain. 
 It was this hourly anticipation of her loss that 
 made him a sad and thoughtful man and lent 
 a mournful melody to his undying song. 
 
 "It is true that later in life Poe had much of 
 those morbid feelings which a life of poverty 
 and disappointment is so apt to engender in 
 the heart of man the sense of having been 
 ill-used, misunderstood, and put aside by men 
 of far less ability and of none, which preys 
 upon the heart and clouds the brain of many a 
 child of song : a consciousness of the inequali- 
 ties of life and of the abundant power of mere 
 wealth allied even to vulgarity to over-ride all 
 distinctions, and to thrust itself bedaubed with 
 dirt and glittering with tinsel into the high 
 places of society, and the chief seats of the 
 synagogue ; whilst he, a worshiper of the beau- 
 tiful and true, who listened to the voices of 
 angels, and held delighted companionship with 
 them as the cold throng swept disdainfully by 
 him, was often in danger of being thrust out 
 houseless, homeless, beggared upon the world, 
 with all his fine feelings strung to a tension of
 
 MEMOIR. 107 
 
 agony when he thought of his beautiful and 
 delicate wife dying hourly before his eyes. 
 What wonder that he then poured out the 
 vials of a long- treasured bitterness upon the 
 injustice and hollowness of all society around 
 him? 
 
 "The very natural question 'Wh}' did he 
 not work and thrive?' is easily answered. It 
 will not be asked by the many who know the 
 precarious tenure by which literary men hold a 
 mere living in this country. The avenues 
 through which they can profitably reach the 
 country are few, and crowded with aspirants 
 for bread as well as fame. The unfortunate 
 tendency to cheapen every literary work to the 
 lowest point of beggarly flimsiness in price 
 and profit prevents even the well-disposed 
 from extending anything like an adequate sup- 
 port to even a part of the great throng which 
 genius, talent, education, and even misfortune 
 force into the struggle. The character of 
 Poe's mind was of such an order as not to be 
 very widely in demand. The class of educated 
 mind which he could readily and profitably 
 address was small the channels through 
 which he could do so at all were few and 
 publishers all, or nearly all, contented with such 
 pens as were already engaged, hesitated to incur 
 the expense of his to an extent which would 
 sufficiently remunerate him ; hence, when he 
 was fairly at sea, connected permanently with 
 no publication, he suffered all the horrors of 
 prospective destitution, with scarcely the abil- 
 ity of providing for immediate necessities ; and
 
 108 MEMOIR. 
 
 at such moments, alas ! the tempter often came, 
 and as you have truly said, 'one glass* of wine 
 made him a madman. Let the moralist who 
 stands upon 'tufted carpet,' and surveys his 
 smoking board, the fruits of his individual toil 
 or mercantile adventure, pause before he lets 
 the anathema, trembling upon his lips, fall 
 upon a man like Poe! who, wandering from 
 publisher to publisher, with his fine print-like 
 manuscript, scrupulously clean and neatly 
 rolled, finds no market for his brain with 
 despair at heart, misery ahead for himself and 
 his loved ones, and gaunt famine dogging at 
 his heels, thus sinks by the wayside, before 
 the demon that watches his steps and whispers 
 oblivion. Of all the miseries which God, or 
 his own vices, inflict upon man, none are so 
 terrible as that of having the strong and will- 
 ing arm struck down to a child-like inefficiency, 
 while the Heart and Will have the purpose 
 and force of a giant's outdoing. We must re- 
 member, too, that the very organization of 
 such a mind as that of Poe the very tension 
 and tone of his exquisitely strung nerves the 
 passionate yearnings of his soul for the beauti- 
 ful and true, utterly unfitted him for the rude 
 jostlings and fierce competitorship of trade. 
 The only drafts of his that could be honored 
 were those upon his brain. The unpeopled 
 air the caverns of ocean the decay and mys- 
 tery that hang around old castles the thunder 
 of wind through the forest aisles the spirits 
 that rode the blast, by all but him unseen 
 an<J the deep metaphysical creations which
 
 MEMOIR. 109 
 
 floated through the chambers of his soul were 
 his only wealth, the High Change where only 
 his signature was valid for rubies. 
 
 44 Could he have stepped down and chron- 
 icled small beer, made himself the shifting 
 toady of the hour, and with bow and cringe hung 
 upon the steps of greatness, sounding the glory 
 of third-rate ability with a penny trumpet, he 
 would have been feted alive and perhaps been 
 praised when dead. But no! his views of the 
 duties of the critic were stern, and he felt that 
 in praising an unworthy writer he committed 
 dishonor. His pen was regulated by the high- 
 est sense of duty. By a keen analysis he sepa- 
 rated and studied each piece which the skillful 
 mechanist had put together. No part, how- 
 ever insignificant, or apparently unimportant, 
 escaped the rigid and patient scrutiny of his 
 sagacious mind. The unfitted joint proved the 
 bungler the slightest blemish was a palpable 
 fraud. He was the scrutinizing lapidary, who 
 detected and exposed the most minute flaw 
 in diamonds. The gem of first water shone the 
 brighter for the truthful setting of his calm 
 praise. He had the finest touch of soul for 
 beauty a delicate and hearty appreciation of 
 worth. If his praise appeared tardy, it was of 
 priceless value when given. It was true as 
 well as sincere. It was the stroke of honor 
 that at once knighted the receiver. It was in 
 the world of mind that he was king; and with 
 a fierce audacity he felt and proclaimed him- 
 self autocrat. As critic he was Despotic, 
 Supreme. Yet no man with more readiness
 
 110 MEMOIR. 
 
 would soften a harsh expression at the request 
 of a friend, or if he himself felt that he had 
 infused too great a degree of bitterness into 
 his article, none would more readily soften it 
 down after it was in type though still main- 
 taining the justness of his critical views. I do 
 not believe that he wrote to give pain ; but in 
 combating what he conceived to be error, he 
 used the strongest word that presented itself, 
 even in conversation. He labored not so 
 much to reform as to exterminate error, and 
 thought the shortest process was to pull it up 
 by the roots. 
 
 "He was a worshiper of intellect longing 
 to grasp the power of mind that moves the 
 stars to bathe his soul in the dreams of ser- 
 aphs. He was himself all ethereal, of a fine 
 essence, th it moved in an atmosphere of 
 spirits of spiritual beauty overflowing and 
 radiant twin brother with the angels, feeling 
 their flashing wings upon his heart, and almost 
 clasping them in his embrace. Of them, and 
 as an expectant archangel of that high order 
 of intellect, stepping out of himself as it were, 
 and interpreting the time he reveled in deli- 
 cious luxury in a world beyond, with an audac- 
 ity which we fear in madmen, but in genius 
 worship as the inspiration of heaven. 
 
 "But my object in throwing together a few 
 thoughts upon the character of Edgar Allan 
 Poe was not to attempt an elaborate criticism, 
 but to say what might palliate grave faults 
 that have been attributed to him, and to meet 
 by facts unjust accusation in a word, to give
 
 MEMOIR. Ill 
 
 a mere outline of the man as lie lived before 
 me. I think I am warranted in saying to Mr. 
 Griswold, that he must review his decision. 
 It will not stand the calm scrutiny of his own 
 judgment, or of time, while it must be re- 
 garded by all the friends of Mr. Poe as an ill- 
 judged and misplaced calumny upon that 
 gifted Son of Genius. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "GEO. R. GRAHAM. 
 "PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2, 1850. 
 
 TON. P. WILJ-IS, Esq."
 
 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 BY N. P. WILLIS. 
 
 THE ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits 
 imprisoned in one body equally powerful and 
 having the complete mastery by turns of one 
 man that is to say, inhabited by both a devil 
 and an angel seems to have been realized, if 
 all we hear is true, in the character of the ex- 
 traordinary man whose name we have written 
 above. Our own impression of the nature of 
 Edgar A. Poe differs in some important degree, 
 however, from that which has been generally 
 conveyed in the notices of his death. Let us, 
 before telling what we personally know of him, 
 copy a graphic and highly finished portraiture, 
 from the pen of Dr. Rufus W. Griswoid, which 
 appeared in a recent number of the Tribune: 
 
 "EDGAR ALLAN POE is dead. He died in Baltimore on 
 Sunday, October 7th. This announcement will startle 
 many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was 
 known, personally or by reputation, in all this country ; 
 he had readers in England, and in several of the states 
 of Continental Europe ; but he had few or no friends ; 
 and the regrets for his death will be suggested princi- 
 pally by the consideration that in him literary art has 
 lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars." . . . 
 
 "His conversation was at times almost super-mortal 
 in its eloquence. His voice was modulated with aston- 
 ishing skill, and his large and variably expressive eyes 
 looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who lis- 
 113
 
 114 DEATH OF EDGAR A. 
 
 tened, while his own face glowed, or was changeless in 
 pallor, as his imagination quickened his blood or drew 
 it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was from 
 the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision 
 of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, ex- 
 actly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost simplicity 
 and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic, 
 and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his 
 ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghast- 
 liest grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious 
 beauty so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that 
 the attention which was yielded to him was chained till 
 it stood among his wonderful creations till he himself 
 dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to com- 
 mon and base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions 
 of the ignoblest passion. 
 
 "He was at all times a dreamer dwelling in ideal 
 realms in heaven or hell peopled with the creatures 
 and the accidents of his brain. He walked the streets, 
 in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indis- 
 tinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer 
 (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that 
 he was already damned, but) for their happiness who at 
 the moment were objects of his idolatry ; or, with his 
 glances introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, 
 and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the 
 wildest storms-; and all night, -with drenched garments 
 and arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as 
 if to spirits that at such times only could be evoked by 
 him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals his dis- 
 turbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his aonsti- 
 tution subjected him close by the Aidenn where were 
 those he lovedc The Aidenn which he might never see, 
 but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the 
 less fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin 
 did not involve the doom of death. 
 
 "He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subju- 
 gated his will and engrossed his faculties, always to 
 bear the memory ot some controlling sorrow. The re- 
 markable poem of The Raven was probably much more 
 nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were 
 very intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his 
 own history. He was that bird's
 
 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 115 
 
 " ' unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster 
 
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 
 
 burden bore 
 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden 
 bore 
 
 Of "Never never more." ' 
 
 "Every genuine author in a greater or less degree 
 leaves in his works, whatever their design, traces of his 
 personal character; elements of his immortal being, in 
 which the individual survives the person. While we 
 read the pages of the Fall of the House of Usher or of 
 Mesmeric Revelations, we see in the solemn and stately 
 gloom which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical 
 analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncrasies of 
 what was most remarkable and peculiar in the author's 
 intellectual nature. But we see here only the better 
 phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster ac- 
 tion, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all 
 faith, in man or woman. He had made up his mind 
 upon the numberless complexities of the social world, 
 and the whole system with him was on imposture. This 
 conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally 
 unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society 
 as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his 
 intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope 
 with villainy, while it continually caused him by over- 
 shots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many 
 respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer's novel of 'The 
 Caxtons.' Passion in him comprehended many of the 
 worst emotions which militate against human happi- 
 ness. You could not contradict him, but you raised 
 quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his 
 cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing 
 natural advantages of this poor boy his beauty, his 
 readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him 
 like a fiery atmosphere had raised his constitutional 
 self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very 
 claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Iras- 
 cible, envious bad enough, but not the worst, for these 
 salient angles were'all varnished over with a cold, repel- 
 lent cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers.
 
 116 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 There seemed to him no moral susceptibility ; and, what 
 was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing 
 cf the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, 
 that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but 
 no wish for the esteem or the love of his species; only 
 the hard wish to succeed not shine, not serve succeed 
 that he might have the right to despise a world which 
 galled his self-conceit. 
 
 "We have suggested the influence of his arms and 
 vicissitudes upon his literature. It was more conspicu- 
 ous in his later than in his earlier writings. Nearly all 
 that he wrote in the last two or three years including 
 much of his best poetry was in some sense biographi- 
 cal ; in draperies of hi > imagination, those who had 
 taken the trouble to trace his steps, eould perceive, but 
 slightly concealed, the figure of himself." 
 
 Apropos of the disparaging portion of the 
 above well-written sketch, let us truthfully 
 say: 
 
 Some four or five years since, when editing 
 a daily paper in this city, Mr. Poe was em- 
 ployed by us, for several months, as critic and 
 sub-editor. This was our first personal ac- 
 quaintance with him. He resided with his 
 wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles out 
 of town, but was at his desk in the office, from 
 nine in the morning till the evening paper 
 went to press. With the highest admiration 
 for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone 
 for more than ordinary irregularity, we were 
 led by common report to expect a very capri- 
 cious attention to his duties, and occasionally 
 a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went 
 on, however, and he was invariably punctual 
 and industrious. With his pale, beautiful, 
 and intellectual face, as a reminder of what
 
 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 117 
 
 genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, 
 not to treat him always with deferential 
 courtesy, and, to our occasional request that 
 he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or 
 that he would erase a passage colored too 
 highly with his resentments against society and 
 mankind, he readily and courteously assented 
 far more yielding than most men, we 
 thought, on points so excusably sensitive. 
 With a prospect of taking the lead in another 
 periodical, he at last voluntarily gave up his 
 employment with us, and, through all this con- 
 siderable period, we had seen but one present- 
 ment of the man a quiet, patient, industrious, 
 and most gentlemanly person, commanding 
 the utmost respect and good feeling by his 
 unvarying deportment and ability. 
 
 Residing as he did in the country, we never 
 met Mr. Poe in hours of leisure ; but he fre- 
 quently called on us afterward at our place of 
 business, and we met him often in the street 
 invariably the same sad-mannered, winning, 
 and refined gentleman, such as we had always 
 known him. It was by rumor only, up to the 
 day of his death, that we knew of any other 
 development of manner or character. We 
 heard, from one who knew him well (what 
 should be stated in all mention of his lament- 
 able irregularities), that, with a single glass of 
 wine, his whole nature was reversed, the 
 demon became uppermost, and, though none 
 of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, 
 his will was palpably insane. Possessing his 
 reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such
 
 118 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 times, and seeking his acquaintances with his 
 wonted look and memory, he easily seemed 
 personating only another phase of his natural 
 character, and was accused, accordingly, of 
 insulting arrogance and bad-heartedness. In 
 this reversed character, we repeat, it was never 
 our chance to see him. We know it from 
 heresay, and we mention it in connection with 
 this sad infirmity of physical constitution ; 
 which puts it upon very nearly the ground of 
 a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity. 
 The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of 
 heart, of which Mr. Poewas generally accused, 
 seemed to us referrable altogether to this rev- 
 ersed phase of his character. Under that 
 degree of intoxication which only acted upon 
 him by demonizing his sense of truth and 
 right, he doubtless said and did much that was 
 wholly irreconcilable with his better nature; 
 but, when himself, and as we knew him only, 
 his modesty and unaffected humility, as to his 
 own deservings, were a constant charm to his 
 character. His letters (of which the constant 
 application for autographs has taken from us, 
 we are sorry to confess, the greater portion) 
 exhibited this quality very strongly. In one 
 of the carelessly written notes of which we 
 chance still to retain possession, for instance, 
 he speaks of "The Raven" that extraordinary 
 poem which electrified the world of imagina- 
 tive readers, and has become the type of a 
 school of poetry of its own and, in evident 
 earnest, attributes its success to the few words 
 of commendation with which we had prefaced
 
 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 119 
 
 it in this paper. It will throw light on his 
 same character to give a literal copy of the 
 note : 
 
 "FORDHAM, April 20, 1849. 
 
 "Mv DEAR WILLIS: The poem which I enclose, and 
 which I am so vain as to hope you will like in some 
 respects, has been just published in a paper for which 
 sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. 
 It pays well as times go but unquestionably it ought 
 to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am 
 consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses 
 accompanying this, may I beg you to take out of the 
 tomb, and bring them to light in the Home Journal? It 
 you can oblige me so far as to copy them, I do not think 
 
 it will be necessary to say ' From the , that would 
 
 be too bad; and, perhaps, 'From a late paper,' 
 
 would do. 
 
 "I have not forgotten how a 'good word in season' 
 from you made 'The Raven,' and made 'Ulalume' 
 (which, by the way, people have done me the honor of 
 attributing to you) therefore I would ask you (if I 
 dared) to say something of these lines if they please 
 you. ' 'Truly yours ever, 
 
 "EDGAR A. POE." 
 
 In double proof of his earnest disposition 
 to do the best for himself, and as the trustful 
 and grateful nature which has been denied 
 him we give another of the only three of his 
 notes which we chance to retain : 
 
 "FORDHAM, January 22, 1848. 
 
 "My DEAR MR. WILLIS: I am about to make an 
 effort at re-establishing myself in the literary world, 
 and feel that I may depend upon your aid. , 
 
 "My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called 
 'The Stylus;' but it would be^useless to me, even when 
 established, if not entirely out of the control of a pub- 
 lisher. I mean, therefore, to get up a Journal which 
 shall be my own, at all points. With this end in view,
 
 120 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 I must get a list of, at least, five hundred subscribers to 
 begin with: nearly two hundred I have already. I 
 propose, however, to go South and West, among my 
 personal and literary friends old college and West 
 Point acquaintances and see what I can do. In order 
 to get the means of taking the first step, I propose to 
 lecture at the Society Library on Thursday, the 3d ot 
 February and, that there may be no cause of squab- 
 bling, my subject shall not be literary at all. I have 
 chosen a broad text 'The Universe.' 
 
 "Having thus given you the facts of the case, I leave 
 all the rest to the suggestions of your own tact and 
 generosity. Gratefully most gratefully 
 
 "Your friend always, 
 
 " EDGAR A. POE." 
 
 Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, 
 we think they sufficiently prove the existence 
 of the very qualities denied to Mr. Poe 
 humility, willingness to persevere, belief in 
 another's kindness, and capability of cordial 
 and grateful friendship ! Such he assuredly 
 was when sane. Such only he has invariably 
 seemed to us, in all we have happened person- 
 ally to know of him, through a friendship of 
 five or six years. And so much easier is it to 
 believe what we have seen and known, than 
 what we hear of only, that we remember him 
 but with admiration and respect these 
 descriptions of him, when morally insane, 
 seeming to us like portraits, painted in sick- 
 ness, of a man we have only known in health. 
 
 But there is another, more touching, and far 
 more forcible evidence that there was goodness 
 in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it, we are obliged 
 to venture upon the lifting of the veil which 
 sacredly covers grief and refinement in povert
 
 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 121 
 
 but we think it may be excused, if so we can 
 brighten the memory of the poet, even were 
 there not a more needed and immediate service 
 which it may render to the nearest link broken 
 by his death. 
 
 Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe's removal to 
 this city was by a call which we received from 
 a lady who introduced herself to us as the 
 mother of his wife. She was in search of 
 employment for him, and she excused her 
 errand by mentioning that he was ill, that her 
 daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that 
 their circumstances were such as compelled 
 her taking it upon herself. The countenance 
 of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with 
 an evidently complete giving up of her life to 
 privation and sorrowful tenderness, her gentle 
 and mournful voice urging its plea, her long- 
 forgotten but habitually and unconsciously 
 refined manners, and her appealing and yet 
 appreciative mention of the claims and abilities 
 of her son, disclosed at once the presence of 
 one of those angels upon earth that women in 
 adversity can be. It was a hard fate that she 
 was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with fas- 
 tidious difficulty, and in a style too much above 
 the popular level to be well paid. He was 
 always in pecuniary difficulty, with his sick 
 wife, frequently in want of the merest neces- 
 saries of life. Winter after winter, for years, 
 the most touching sight to us, in this whole 
 city, has been that tireless minister to genius, 
 thinly and insufficiently clad, going from office 
 to office with a poem, or an article on some
 
 122 DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 literary subject, to sell sometimes simply 
 pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and 
 begging for him mentioning nothing but 
 that "he was ill," whatever might be the rea- 
 son for his writing nothing and never, amid 
 all her tears and recitals of distress, suffering 
 one syllable to escape her lips that could con- 
 vey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a 
 lessening of pride in his genius and good inten- 
 tions. Her daughter died, a year and a half 
 since, but she did not desert him. She contin- 
 ued his ministering angel living with him 
 caring for hkn guarding him against expos- 
 ure, and, when he was carried away by tempta- 
 tion, amid grief and the loneliness of feelings 
 unreplied to, and awoke from his self-abandon- 
 ment prostrated in destitution and suffering, 
 begging for him still. If woman's devotion 
 born with a first love, and fed with human 
 passion, hallow its object, as it is allowed to 
 do, what does not a devotion like this pure, 
 disinterested, and holy as the watch of an 
 invisible spirit say for him who inspired it. 
 
 We have a letter before us, written by this 
 lady, Mrs. Clemm, on the morning in which she 
 heard of the death of this object of her untir- 
 ing care. It is merely a request that we would 
 call upon her, but we will copy a few of its 
 words sacred as its privacy is to warrant the 
 truth of the picture we have drawn above, and 
 add force to the appeal we wish to make for her : 
 
 "I have this morning heard of the death of my darling 
 
 Eddie Can you give me any circumstances or 
 
 particulars? . . , , Oh ' do not desert your poor friend
 
 \ DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. 123 
 
 in this bitter affliction Ask Mr. to come, as 
 
 I must deliver a message to him from my poor Eddie. 
 .... I need not ask you to notice his death and to 
 ppeak well of him. I know you will. But say what an 
 affectionate son he was to me, his poor desolate 
 mother." .... 
 
 To hedge round a grave with respect, what 
 choice is there, between the relinquished 
 wealth and honors of the world, and the story 
 of such a woman's unrewarded devotion? 
 Risking what we do, in delicacy, by making it 
 public, we feel other reasons aside that it 
 betters the world to make known that there are 
 such ministrations to its erring and gifted. 
 What we have said will speak to some hearts. 
 There are those who will be glad to know how 
 the lamp, whose light of poverty has beamed 
 on their far-away recognition, was watched 
 over with care and pain that they may send 
 to her, who is more darkened than they by its 
 extinction, some token of their sympathy. 
 She is destitute, and alone. If any, far or 
 near, will send to us what may aid and cheer 
 her through the remainder of her life, we will 
 joyfully place it in her hands.
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 In speaking; of the Poetic Principle, I have 
 no design to be either thorough or profound. 
 While discussing, very much at random, the 
 essentiality of what we call Poetry, my princi- 
 pal purpose will be to cite, for consideration, 
 some few of those minor English or American 
 poems which best suit my own taste, or which 
 upon my own fancy have left the most definite 
 impressions. By "minor poems" I mean, of 
 course, poems of little length. And here, in 
 the beginning, permit me to say a few words 
 in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, 
 which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has 
 always had its influence in my own critical 
 estimate of the poem. I_hpld_ that a_ long, 
 poem does not exist. I maintain that the 
 phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contra- 
 diction in terms. 
 
 I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves 
 its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevat- 
 ing the soul. The value of the poem is in the 
 ratio of this elevating excitement. But all 
 excitements are, through a psychical necessity,, 
 tran^jpnl. That degree of excitement which 
 would entitle a poem to be so called at all, can- 
 ot be sustained throughout a composition of \ 
 ny great length. After the lapse of half an \ 
 
 flnr fa* 1e a \ 
 
 125 .... \
 
 126 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 revulsion ensues and then the poem is in 
 effect, and in fast, no longer such. 
 
 There are, no doubt, many who have found 
 difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum 
 that the " Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly 
 admired throughout, with the absolute impos- 
 sibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, 
 the amount of enthusiasm which that critical 
 dictum would demand. This great work, in 
 fact, is to be regarded as poetical only when, 
 losing sight of that vital requisite in all works 
 of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of 
 minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity its 
 totality of effect of impression, we read it 
 (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, 
 the result is but a constant alternation of ex- 
 citement and depression. After a passage of 
 what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, 
 inevitably, a passage of platitude which no 
 critical prejudgment can force us to admire; 
 but if, upon completing the work, we read it 
 again, omitting the first book that is to say, 
 commencing with the second we shall be sur- 
 prised at now finding that admirable which we 
 before condemned that damnable which we 
 had previously so much admired. It follows 
 from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or 
 absolute effect of even the best epic under the 
 sun is a nullity: and this is precisely Jhe 
 fact. 
 
 In regard to the " Iliad," we have, if not 
 positive proof, at least very good reason, for 
 believing it intended as a series of lyrics ; but, 
 granting the epic intention, I can say only
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 127 
 
 that the work is based on an imperfect sense 
 of Art. The modern epic is, of the supposi- 
 titious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and 
 blindfold imitation. But the day of these 
 artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, 
 any very long poem were popular in reality 
 which I doubt it is at least clear that no very 
 long poem will ever be popular again. 
 
 That the extent of a poetical work is ceteris 
 paribus, the measure of its merit, seems un- 
 doubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition 
 sufficiently absurd yet we are indebted for 
 it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there 
 can be nothing in mere size, abstractly consid- 
 ered there can be nothing in mere bulk, so 
 far as a volume is concerned, which has so 
 continuously elicited admiration from these 
 saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, 
 by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude 
 which it conveys, does impress us with a sense 
 of the sublime but no man is impressed after 
 this fashion by the material grandeur of even 
 "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies 
 have not instructed us to be so impressed by 
 it. As yet, they have not insisted on our esti- 
 mating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollock 
 by the pound but what else are we to infer 
 from their continual prating about "sustained 
 effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little 
 gentleman has accomplished an epic, let^jisu 
 frankly commend him fortheeffpj:f-niT'.this 
 indeed t>e a thing commendable but let us 
 forbear praising the epic on the effort's account. 
 It is to be hoped that common sense, in the
 
 128 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 time to come, will prefer deciding- upon a work 
 of Art, rather by the impression it makes by 
 the effect it produces than by the time it took 
 to impress the effect, or by the amount of 
 "sustained effort" which had been found nec- 
 essary in effecting the impression. The effort 
 is, that perseverance is one thing and genius 
 quite another nor can all the Quarterlies in 
 Christendom confound them. By and by, this 
 proposition, with many which I have been just 
 urging, will be received as self-evident. In 
 the mean time, by being generally condemned 
 as falsities, they will not be essentially dam- 
 aged as truths. 
 
 On the other hand, it is clear that a poem 
 may be improperly brief. Undue brevity 
 degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A 
 very short poem, while now and then produc- 
 ing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a pro- 
 found or enduring effect. There must be the 
 steady pressing down of the stamp upon the 
 wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable 
 things, pungent and spirit-stirring; but, in 
 general, they have been too imponderous to 
 stamp themselves deeply into the public atten- 
 tion; and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, 
 have been blown aloft only to be whistled 
 down the wind. 
 
 A remarkable instance of the effect of undue 
 brevity in depressing a poem in keeping it out 
 of the popular view is afforded by the follow- 
 ing exquisite little Serenade: 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee 
 In the first sweet sleep of night,
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 129 
 
 When the winds are breathing low, 
 And the stars are shining bright. 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee, 
 And a spirit in my feet 
 
 Has led me who knows how? 
 To thy chamber- window, sweet f 
 
 The wandering airs they faint 
 
 On the dark, the silent stream 
 The champak odors fall 
 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream j 
 The nightingale's complaint, 
 
 It dies upon her heart, 
 As I must die on thine, 
 
 O, beloved as thou art! 
 
 O, lift me from the grass! 
 
 I die, I faint, I fail ! 
 Let thy love in kisses rain 
 
 On my lips and eyelids pale. 
 My cheek is cold and white, alas) 
 
 My heart beats loud and fast: 
 Oh ! press it close to thine again, 
 
 Where it will break at last ! 
 
 Very few perhaps, are familiar with these 
 lines yet no less a poet than Shelley is their 
 author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal 
 imagination will be appreciated by all but 
 by none so thoroughly as by him who has him- 
 self arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, 
 to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern 
 midsummer night. 
 
 One of the finest poems by Willis the very 
 best, in my opinion, which he has ever written 
 has, no doubt, through this same defect of 
 undue brevity, been kept back from its proper 
 position, not less in the critical than in the. 
 popular view.
 
 130 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The shadows lay along Broadway, 
 
 'Twas near the twilight-tide 
 And slowly there a lady fair 
 
 Was walking in her pride. 
 Alone walk'd she ; but, viewlessly, 
 
 Walk'd spirits at her side. 
 
 Peace'charm'd the street beneath her feet, 
 
 And Honor charm'd the air; 
 And all astir looked kind on her, 
 
 And call'd her good as fair 
 For all God ever gave to her 
 
 She kept with chary care. 
 
 She kept with care her bea'ities rare 
 
 From lovers warm and true 
 For her heart was cold to all but gold, 
 
 And the rich came not to woo 
 But honor'd well are charms to sell 
 
 If priests the selling do. 
 
 Now walking there was one more fair 
 
 A slight girl, lily-pale ; 
 And she had unseen company 
 
 To make the spirit quail 
 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn, 
 
 And nothing could avail. 
 
 No mercy now can clear her brow 
 
 For this world's peace to pray; 
 For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air 
 
 Her woman's heart gave way ! 
 But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven 
 
 By man is cursed alway! 
 
 In this composition we find it difficult to 
 recognize the Willis who has written so many 
 mere "verses of society." The lines are not 
 only richly ideal, but full of energy; while 
 they breathe an earnestness an evident sin- 
 cerity of sentiment for which we look in vain 
 throughout all the other works of this author.
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 131 
 
 While the epic mania while the idea that, 
 to merit in poetry, prolixity is indispensable 
 has, for some years past, been gradually dying 
 out of the public mind, by mere dint of its own 
 absurdity we find it succeeded by a heresy 
 too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one 
 which, in the brief period it has already 
 endured, may be said to have accomplished 
 more in the corruption of our Poetical Litera- 
 ture than all its other enemies combined. I 
 allude to the heresy of The Didactic. It has 
 been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly 
 and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all 
 Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, 
 should inculcate a moral ; and by this moral is 
 the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. 
 We Americans especially have patronized this 
 happy idea; and we Bostonians, very espe- 
 cially, have developed it in full. We have 
 taken it into our heads that to write a poem 
 simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowl- 
 edge such to have been our design, would be 
 to confess ourselves radically wanting in the 
 true Poetic dignity and force : but the simple 
 fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves 
 to look into our own souls, we should imme- 
 diately there discover that under the sun there 
 neither exists nor can exist any work more 
 thoroughly dignified more supremely noble 
 than this very poem per se this poem which 
 is a poem and nothing more-r-this poem writ- 
 ten solely for the poem's sakeT/ 
 
 With a^tteep-a^revefence torthe True as ever 
 inspired the bosom of man, I would, neverthe-
 
 132 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 less, limit, in some measure, its modes of incul- 
 cation. I would limit to enforce them. I 
 would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The 
 demands of Truth are severe. She has no 
 sympathy with the myrtles. All that which 
 is so indispensable in Song, is precisely all 
 that with which she has nothing whatever to 
 do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox, 
 to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforc- 
 ing a truth, we need severity rather than 
 efflorescence of language. We must be simple, 
 precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unim- 
 passioned. In a word, we must be in that 
 mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact 
 converse of the poetical. He must be blind 
 indeed who does not perceive the radical and 
 chasmal differences between the truthful and 
 the poetical modes of inculcation. He must 
 be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite 
 of these differences, shall still persist in at- 
 tempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and 
 waters of Poetry and Truth. 
 
 Dividing the world of mind into its three 
 most immediately obvious distinctions, we 
 have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral 
 Sense. I place Taste in the middle, because 
 it is just this position which, in the mind, it 
 occupies. It holds intimate relations with 
 either extreme, but from the Moral Sense is 
 separated by so faint a difference that Aris- 
 totle has not hesitated to place some of its 
 operations among the virtues themselves. 
 Nevertheless, we find the offices of the trio 
 marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 133 
 
 the Intellect concerns itself with Truth, so 
 Taste informs us of the Beautiful while the 
 Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this 
 latter, while Conscience teaches the obliga- 
 tion and Reason the expediency, Taste con- 
 tents herself with displaying the charms: 
 waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of 
 her deformity her disproportion her animos- 
 ity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the 
 harmonious in a word, to Beauty. 
 
 An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit 
 of man, is thus, plainly, a sense of the Beauti- 
 ful. This it is which administers to his de- 
 light in the manifold forms, and sounds, and 
 odors, and sentiments, amid which he exists. 
 And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or 
 the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is 
 the mere oral or written repetition of these 
 forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and 
 sentiments, a duplicate source of delight. But 
 this mere repetition is not poetry. He who 
 shall simply sing, with however glowing en- 
 thusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of 
 description of the sights, and sounds, and 
 odors, and colors, and sentiments, which greet 
 him in common with all mankind he, I say, 
 has yet failed to prove his divine title. There 
 is still a something in the distance which he 
 has been unable to attain. We have still a 
 thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not 
 shown us the crystal springs. This thirst be- 
 longs to the immortality of Man. It is at once 
 a consequence and an indication of his per- 
 ennial existence. It is the desire of the moth
 
 134 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the 
 Beauty before us but a wild effort to reach 
 the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic 
 prescience of the glories beyond the grave, 
 we struggle, by multiform combinations 
 among the things and thoughts of Time, to 
 attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very 
 elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. 
 And thus when by Poetry or when by Music, 
 the most entrancing of the Poetic moods we 
 find ourselves melted into tears we weep 
 then not as the Abbate Gravina supposes 
 through excess of pleasure, but through a cer- 
 tain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability 
 to grasp now wholly, here on earth, at once 
 and forever, those divine and rapturous joys, 
 of which through the poem, or through the 
 music, we attain to but brief and indetermi- 
 nate glimpses. 
 
 The struggle to apprehend the supernal 
 Loveliness this struggle, on the part of souls 
 fittingly constituted has given to the world 
 all that which it (the world) has ever been 
 enabled at once to understand and to feel as 
 poetic. 
 
 The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may de- 
 velop itself in various modes in Painting, in 
 Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance 
 very especially in Music and very peculiarly, 
 and with a wide field, in the composition of 
 the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, 
 however, has regard only to its manifestation 
 in words. And here let me speak briefly on 
 the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 135 
 
 the certainty that music, in its various modes 
 of meter, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a 
 moment in Poetry as never to be wisely re- 
 jected is so vitally important and adjunct, 
 that he is simply silly who declines its assist- 
 ance, I will not now pause to maintain its 
 absolute essentiality. It is in Music, perhaps, 
 that the soul most nearly attains the great end 
 for which, when inspired by the Poetic Senti- 
 ment, it struggles the creation of supernal 
 Beauty. It may be, indeed, that here this 
 sublime end is, now and then, attained in fact. 
 We are often made to feel, with a shivering 
 delight, that from an earthly harp -are stricken 
 notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to 
 the angels. And thus there can be little doubt 
 that in the union of Poetry with Music in its 
 popular sense, we shall find the widest field 
 for the Poetic development. The old Bards 
 and Minnesingers had advantages which we 
 do not possess and Thomas Moore, singing 
 his own songs, was, in the most legitimate 
 manner, perfecting them as poems. 
 
 To recapitulate, then : I would define, in 
 brief, the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical 
 Creation oT Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. 
 WitlTthe Intellect or w7nr*f!TrConscience7"1t 
 has only collateral relations. Unless incident- 
 ally, it has no concern whatever either with 
 Duty or with Truth. 
 
 A few words, however, in explanation. 
 That pleasure which is at once the most pure, 
 the most elevating, and the most intense, is 
 derived, I maintain, from the contemplation
 
 136 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of the Beauffiul^ In the contemplation of 
 Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that 
 pleasurable elevation, or excitement, of the 
 soul, which we recognize as the Poetic Senti- 
 ment, and which is so easily distinguished 
 from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Rea- 
 son, or from Passion, which is the excitement 
 of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore using 
 the word as inclusive of the sublime I ma 
 
 Beauty the province of the poem, simply ' 
 cause it is an obvious rule of Art that effects 
 should be made to spring as directly as pos- 
 sible from their causes no one as yet having 
 been weak enough to deny that the peculiar 
 elevation in question is at least most readily 
 attainable in the poem. It by no means fol- 
 lows, however, that the incitements of Passion, 
 or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of 
 Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, 
 and with advantage ; for they may subserve, 
 incidentally, in various ways, the general pur- 
 poses of the work: but the true artist will 
 always contrive to tone them down in proper 
 subjection to that Beauty which is the atmos- 
 phere and the real essence of the poem. 
 
 I cannot better introduce the few poems 
 which I shall present for your consideration, 
 than by the citation of the Proem to Mr. 
 Longfellow's "Waif": 
 
 The day is done, and the darkness 
 
 Falls from the wings of Night, 
 As a feather is wafted downward 
 
 From an Eagle in his flight
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 137 
 
 I see the lights of the village 
 Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
 
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 
 That my soul cannot resist ; 
 
 A feeling of sadness and longing, 
 
 That is not akin to pain, 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 
 As the mist resembles the rain. 
 
 Come, read to me some poem, 
 
 Some simple and heartfelt lay, 
 That shall soothe this restless feeling 
 
 And banish the thoughts of day. 
 
 Not from the grand old masters, 
 
 Not from the bards sublime, 
 "Whose distant footsteps echo 
 
 Through the corridors of Time. 
 
 For, like strains of martial music. 
 
 Their mighty thoughts suggest 
 Life's endless toil and endeavor; 
 
 And to-night I long for rest. 
 
 Read from some humbler poet, 
 Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
 
 As showers from the clouds of summer. 
 Or tears from the eyelids start ; 
 
 Who through long days of labor, 
 
 And nights devoid of ease, 
 Still heard in his soul the music 
 
 Of wonderful melodies. 
 
 Such songs have power to quiet 
 
 The restless pulse of care, 
 And come like the benediction 
 
 That follows after prayer. 
 
 Then read from the treasured volume 
 
 The poem of thy choice, 
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet 
 
 The beauty of thy voice, 
 }0 Foe's Poemsj
 
 138 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 And the night shall be filled with music. 
 And the cares, that infest the day. 
 
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
 And as silently steal away. 
 
 With no great range of imagination, these 
 lines have been admired for their delicacy of 
 expression. Some of the images are very 
 effective. Nothing can be better than 
 
 -the bards sublime, 
 
 Whose distant footsteps echo 
 Through the corridors of Time. 
 
 The idea of the last quotation is also very 
 effective. The poem, on the whole, however, 
 is chiefly to be admired for th* graceful in- 
 souciance of its meter, so well in accordance 
 with the character of the sentiments, and espe- 
 cially for the ease of the general manner. 
 This "ease," or naturalness, in a literary 
 style, it has long been the fashion to regard as 
 ease in appearance alone as a point of really 
 difficult attainment. But not so: a natural 
 manner is difficult only to him who should 
 never meddle with it to the unnatural. It is 
 but the result of writing with the understand- 
 ing, or with the instinct, that the tone, in 
 composition, should always be that which the 
 mass of mankind would adopt and must per- 
 petually vary, of course, w-th the occasion. 
 The author, who, after the fashion of The 
 North American Review, should be, upon all 
 occasions, merely "quiet," must necessarily 
 upon many occasions be simply silly, or stupid ; 
 and has no more right to be considered 
 "easy," or "natural" than a Cockney ex-
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 139 
 
 quisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the 
 wax-works. 
 
 Among the minor poems of Bryant, none 
 has so much impressed me as the one which he 
 entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it: 
 
 There, through the long, long summer hours, 
 
 The golden light should lie, 
 And thick, young herbs and groups of flowers 
 
 Stand in their beauty by. 
 The oriole should build and tell 
 His lovetale, close beside my cell ; 
 
 The idle butterfly 
 
 Should rest him there, and there be heard 
 The housewife-bee and humming-bird. 
 
 And what, if cheerful shouts, at noon, 
 
 Come, from the village sent, 
 Or songs of maids, beneath the moon, 
 
 With fairy laughter bent? 
 And what if, in the evening light, 
 Betrothed lovers walk in sight 
 
 Of my low monument? 
 I would the lovely scene around 
 Might know no sadder sight nor sound. 
 
 I know, I know I should not see 
 
 The season's glorious show, 
 Nor would its brightness shine for me, 
 
 Nor its wild musi flow ; 
 But if, around my pi ce of sleep, 
 The friends I love should come to weep, 
 
 They might not haste to go. 
 Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom 
 Should keep them lingering by my tomb. 
 
 These to their softened hearts should bear 
 
 The thought of what has been, 
 And speak of one who cannot share 
 
 The gladness of the scene ; 
 Whose part in all the pomp that fills
 
 140 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The circuit of the summer hills. 
 Is that his grave is green ; 
 And deeply would their hearts rejoice 
 To hear again his living voice. 
 
 The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptu- 
 ous nothing could be more melodious. The 
 poem has always affected me in a remarkable 
 manner. The intense melancholy which seems 
 to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the 
 poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we 
 find thrilling us to the soul while there is the 
 truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The im- 
 pression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. 
 And if, in the remaining compositions which I 
 shall introduce to you, there be more or less of 
 a similar tone always apparent, let me remind 
 you that (how or why we know not) this cer- 
 tain taint of sadness is inseparably connected 
 with all the higher manifestations of true 
 Beauty. It is, nevertheless, 
 
 A feeling of sadness and longing 
 
 That is not akin to pain, 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 
 As the mist resembles the rain. 
 
 The taint of which I speak is clearly per- 
 ceptible even in a poem so full of brilliancy 
 and spirit as the "Health" of Edward Coat 
 Pinkuey : 
 
 I fill this cup to one made up 
 
 Of loveliness alone, 
 A woman, of her gentle sex 
 
 The seeming paragon ; 
 To whom the better elements
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 141 
 
 And kindly stars have given 
 A form so fair, that, like the air, 
 'Tis less of earth than heaven. 
 
 Her every tone is music's own 
 
 Like those of morning birds, 
 And something more than melody 
 
 Dwells ever in her words ; 
 The coinage of her heart are they, 
 
 And from her lips each flows 
 As one may see the burden'd bee 
 
 Forth issue from the rose. 
 
 Affections are as thoughts to her, 
 
 The measures of her hours ; 
 Her feelings have the fragrancy, 
 
 The freshness of young flowers ; 
 And lovely passions, changing oft, 
 
 So fill her, she appears 
 The image of themselves by turns,- 
 
 The idol of past years ! 
 
 Of her bright face one glance will trace 
 
 A picture on the brain, 
 And of her voice in echoing hearts 
 
 A sound must long remain ; 
 But memory, such as mine of her, 
 
 So very much endears, 
 When death is nigh, my latest sigh 
 
 Will not be life's, but hers. 
 
 I fill'd this cup to one made up 
 
 Of loveliness alone, 
 A woman, of her gentle sex 
 
 The seeming paragon 
 Her health ! and would on earth there stood 
 
 Some more of such a frame. 
 That life might be all poetry. 
 
 And weariness a name. 
 
 It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to 
 have been born too far south. Had he been a 
 New Englander, it is probable that he would
 
 142 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 have been ranked as the first of American lyr- 
 ists, by that magnanimous cable which has so 
 long controlled the destinies of American Let- 
 ters, in conducting the thing called The North 
 American Review. The poem just cited is 
 especially beautiful ; but the poetic elevation 
 which it induces, we must refer chiefly to our 
 sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We par- 
 don his hyperboles for the evident earnestness 
 with which they are uttered. 
 
 It was by no means my design, however, to 
 expatiate upon the merits of what I should 
 read you. These will necessarily speak for 
 themselves. Boccalini, in his " Advertise- 
 ments from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus 
 once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism 
 upon a very admirable book: whereupon the 
 god asked him for the beauties of the work. 
 He replied that he only busied himself about 
 the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing 
 him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him to 
 pick out all the chaff for his reward. 
 
 Now this fable answers very well as a hit at 
 the critics but I am by no means sure that 
 the god was in the right. I am by no means 
 certain that the true limits of the critical duty 
 are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, 
 in a poem especially, may be considered in the 
 light of an axiom, which need only be properly 
 put, to become self-evident. It is not excel- 
 lence if it require to be demonstrated as such : 
 and thus, to point out too particularly the 
 merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they 
 are not merits altogether.
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 143 
 
 Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore, 
 is one whose distinguished character as a poem 
 proper, seems to have been singularly left out 
 of view. I allude to his lines beginning 
 44 Come, rest in this bosom." The intense 
 energy of their expression is not surpassed by 
 anything in Byron. There are two of the 
 lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that 
 embodies the all in all of the divine passion of 
 Love a sentiment which, perhaps has found 
 its echo in more, and in more passionate, 
 human hearts than any other single sentiment 
 ever embodied in words : 
 
 Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, 
 Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still 
 
 here: 
 
 Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast, 
 And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last. 
 
 Oh ! what was love made for, if 't is not the same 
 Through joy and through torment, through glory and 
 
 shame? 
 
 I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, 
 I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art 
 
 Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss, 
 And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this, 
 Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue, 
 And shield thee, and save thee, or perish there, too! 
 
 It has been the fashion, of late days, to deny 
 Moore Imagination, while granting him Fancy 
 a distinction originating with Coleridge 
 than whom no man more fully comprehended 
 the great powers of Moore. The fact is, that 
 the fancy of this poet so far predominates 
 over all his other faculties, and over the fancy
 
 144 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of all other men, as to have induced, very 
 naturally, the idea that he is a fanciful only. 
 But never was there a greater mistake. 
 Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a 
 true poet. In the compass of the English lan- 
 guage 1 can call to mind no poem more pro- 
 foundly more weirdly imaginative in the best 
 sense, than the lines commencing **I would 
 I were by that dim lake" which are the com- 
 position of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am 
 unable to remember them. 
 
 One of the noblest and, speaking of Fancy, 
 one of the most singularly fanciful of modern 
 poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" 
 had always, for me, an inexpressible charm : 
 
 O saw ye not fair Ines? 
 
 She's gone into the West, 
 To dazzle when the sun is down 
 
 And rob the world of rest ; 
 She took our daylight with her, 
 
 The smiles that we love best, 
 With morning blushes on her cheek. 
 
 And pearls upon her breast. 
 
 O turn again, fair Ines, 
 
 Before the fall of night, 
 For fear the moon should shine alone, 
 
 And the stars unrival'd bright ; 
 And blessed will the lover be 
 
 That walks beneath their light, 
 And breathes the love against thy cheek 
 
 I dare not even write ! 
 
 Would I had been, fair Ines, 
 
 That gallant cavalier, j 
 
 Who rode so gayly by thy side, 
 
 And whisper'd thee so near ! 
 Were there no bonny dames at home.
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 145 
 
 Or no true lovers here, 
 That he should cross the seas to win 
 The dearest of the dear? 
 
 I saw thee, lovely Ines, 
 
 Descend along the shore, 
 With bands of noble gentlemen, 
 
 And banners wav'd before ; 
 And gentle youth and maidens gay, 
 
 And snowy plumes they wore ; 
 It would have been a beauteous dream, 
 
 If it had been no more ! 
 
 Alas, alas, fair Ines, 
 
 She went away with song, 
 With Music waiting on her steps, 
 
 And shoutings of the throng ; 
 But some were sad and felt no mirth, 
 
 But only Music's wrong, 
 In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell, 
 
 To her you've loved so long. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, 
 
 That vessel never bore 
 So fair a lady on its deck, 
 
 Nor danced so light before, 
 Alas for pleasure on the sea, 
 
 And sorrow on the shore ! 
 The smile that blessed one lover's heart 
 
 Has broken many more. 
 
 "The Haunted House," by the same author, 
 is one of the truest poems ever written one 
 of the truest one of the most unexception- 
 able one of the most thoroughly artistic, both 
 in its theme and in its execution. It is, more- 
 over, powerfully ideal imaginative. I regret 
 that its length renders it unsuitable for the pur- 
 poses of this Lecture. In place of it, permit 
 me to offer the universally appreciated 
 "Bridge of Sighs."
 
 146 
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 One more Unfortunate 
 Weary of breath, 
 Rashly importunate, 
 Gone to her death! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 
 Lift her with care; 
 
 Fashion'd so slenderly, 
 Young, and so fair! 
 
 Look at her garments 
 Clinging like cerements; 
 Whilst the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing; 
 Take her up instantly, 
 Loving and loathing; 
 
 Touch her not scornfully, 
 Think of her mournfully, 
 Gently and humanly; 
 Not of the stains of her, 
 All that remains of her 
 Now, is pure womanly. 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny 
 Rash and undutiful; 
 Past all dishonor, 
 Death has left on her 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 Still, for all slips of hers, 
 One of Eve's family- 
 Wipe those poor lips of 
 
 hers, 
 
 Oozing so clammily, 
 Loop up her tresses 
 Escaped from the comb, 
 Her fair auburn tresses; 
 Whilst wonderment guess- 
 es 
 Where was her home. 
 
 Who was her father? 
 
 Who was her mother? 
 
 Had she a sister? 
 
 Had she a brother? 
 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 
 Yet, than all other? 
 
 Alas! for the rarity 
 Of Christian Charity 
 Under the sun! 
 Oh! it was pitiful! 
 Near a whole city full, 
 Home she had none. 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly 
 Feelings had changed: 
 Love, by harsh evidence 
 Thrown from its eminence, 
 Even God's providence 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 Where the lamps quiver 
 So far in the river, 
 With many a light 
 From window and case- 
 ment, 
 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood, with amazement 
 Houseless by night. . 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and 
 
 shiver 
 
 But not the black arch, 
 Or the dark flowing river: 
 Mad from life's history. 
 Glad to death's mystery, 
 Swift to be hurl'd 
 Anywhere, anywhere 
 Out of the world!
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 14? 
 
 Dreadfully staring 
 Through muddy impurity, 
 As when with the daring 
 Last look of despairing 
 Fixed on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurred by contumely, 
 Cold inhumanity, 
 Turning insanity, 
 Into her rest, 
 Cross her hands humbly, 
 As if praying dumbly, 
 Over her breast! 
 Owning her weakness, 
 Her evil behavior, 
 And leaving, with meek- 
 ness, 
 Her sins with her Saviour! 
 
 In she plunged boldly, 
 No matter how coldly 
 The rough river ran, 
 Over the brink of it, 
 Picture it, think of it. 
 Dissolute Man! 
 Lave in it, drink of it 
 Then, if you can! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care; 
 Fashion'd so slenderly, 
 Young and so fair! 
 
 Ere her limbs frigidly 
 Stiffen so rigidly, 
 Decently, kindly, 
 Smooth and compose them, 
 And her eyes, close them, 
 Staring so blindly! 
 
 The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable 
 than its pathos. The versification, although 
 carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the 
 fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to 
 the wild insanity which is the thesis of the 
 poem. 
 
 Among the minor poems of Lord Byron, is 
 one which has never received from the critics 
 the praise which it undoubtedly deserves : 
 
 Though the day of my destiny's over, 
 
 And the star of my fate hath declined, 
 Thy soft heart refused to discover 
 
 The faults which so many could find; 
 Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted 
 
 It shrunk not to share it with me, 
 And the love which my spirit hath painted 
 
 It never hath found but in thee.
 
 148 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Then when nature around me is smiling, 
 
 The last smile which answers to mine, 
 I do not believe it beguiling, 
 
 Because it reminds me of thine ; 
 And when winds are at war with the ocean, 
 
 As the breasts I believed in with me, 
 If their billows excite an emotion, 
 
 It is that they bear me from thee. 
 
 Though the rock of my last hope is snivered, 
 
 And its fragments are sunk in the wave, 
 Though I feel that my soul is delivered 
 
 To pain it shall not be its slave. 
 There is many a pang to pursue me : 
 
 They may crush, but they shall not contemn 
 They may torture, but shall not subdue me 
 
 'Tis of thee that I think not of them. 
 
 Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 
 
 Though woman, thou didst not forsake, 
 Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 
 
 Though slandered, thou never couldst shake, 
 Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 
 
 Though parted, it was not to fly, 
 Though watchful, 't was not to defame me, 
 
 Nor mute, that the world might belie. 
 
 Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, 
 
 Nor the war of the many with one 
 If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 
 
 'T was folly not sooner to shun: 
 And if dearly that error hath cost me, 
 
 And more than I once could foresee, 
 I have found that whatever it lost me, 
 
 It could not deprive me of thee. 
 
 From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, 
 
 Thus much I at least may recall, 
 It hath taught me that which I most cherished 
 
 Deserved to be dearest of all : 
 In the desert a fountain is springing, 
 
 In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
 
 And a bird in the solitude singing, 
 :h speaks to my spirit of thee 
 
 Which j
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 149 
 
 Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most 
 difficult, the versification could scarcely be 
 improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the 
 pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea, that 
 no man can consider t himself entitled to 
 
 n+' Fafa whiU tfl [MS J^'y^l"^^ 
 
 s. f^ 1 inwavrp": Y love of woman. 
 tf'rom Alfred Tennyson althoug!ilrFJ>erfect 
 sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that 
 ever lived I have left myself time to cite only 
 a very brief specimen. I call him, and think 
 him the noblest of poets not because the 
 impressions he produces are, at all times, the 
 most profound not because the poetical 
 excitement which he induces, is at all times, 
 the most intense but because it is, at all 
 times, the most ethereal in other words, the 
 most elevating and the most pure. No poet is 
 so little of the earth, earthy. What I am 
 about to read is from his last long poem, **The 
 Princess:" 
 
 Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair, 
 Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
 In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
 And thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
 That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
 
 150 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign 'd 
 On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
 O Death in Life, the days that are no more. 
 
 Thus, although in a very cursory and imper- 
 fect manner, I have endeavored to convey to 
 you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It 
 has been my purpose to suggest that, while 
 this Principle itself is, strictly and simply, the 
 Human Aspiration -fAr ftnpe.rnfl.1 IfeaqtYi the 
 manifestation of the Principle is alyaya found 
 in an elevating excitement of theN^oull q ui te 
 independent of that passion which is the intox- 
 ication of the Heart or of that Truth which 
 is the satisfaction of the Reason. For, in 
 regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to 
 degrade, rather than to elevate the Soul. 
 Love, on the contrary Love the true, the 
 divine Eros the Uranian, as distinguished 
 from the Dionaean Venus is unquestionably 
 the purest and truest of all poetical themes. 
 Still in regard to Truth if, to be sure, 
 through the attainment of a truth, we are led 
 to perceive a harmony where none was appar- 
 ent before, we experience, at once, the true 
 poetical effect but this effect is referable to 
 the harmony alone, and not in the least degree 
 to the truth which merely served to render the 
 harmony manifest. 
 
 We shall reach, however, more immediately 
 a distinct conception of what the true Poetry 
 is, by mere reference to a few of the simple 
 elements which induce in the Poet himself the
 
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 151 
 
 true poetical effect. He recognizes the 
 ambrosia which nourishes his soul, in the bright 
 orbs that shine in Heaven in the volutes of 
 the flower in the clustering of low shrubberies 
 in the waving of the grain-fields in the 
 slanting of tall, Eastern trees in the blue dis- 
 tance of mountains in the grouping of clouds 
 in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks in 
 the gleaming of silver rivers in the repose of 
 sequestered lakes in the star-mirroring depths 
 of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs 
 of birds in the harp of ./Eolus in the sighing 
 of the night-wind in the repining voice of 
 the forest in the surf that complains to the 
 shore in the fresh breath of the woods in 
 the scent of the violet in the voluptuous per- 
 fume of the hyacinth in the suggestive odor 
 that comes to him at eventide, from far-dis- 
 tant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, 
 illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all 
 noble thoughts in all unworldly motives in 
 all holy impulses in all chivalrous, generous, 
 and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the 
 beauty of woman in the grace of her step in 
 the luster of her eye in the melody of her 
 voice in her soft laughter in her sigh in 
 the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He 
 deeply feels it in her winning endearments 
 in her burning enthusiasms in her gentle 
 charities in her meek and devotional endur- 
 ances but above all ah, far above all he 
 kneels to it he worships it in the faith, in the 
 purity, in the strength, in the altogether 
 divine majesty of her love.
 
 152 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Let me > conclude by the recitation of yet 
 another brief poem one very different in 
 character from any |4iat I have before quoted. 
 It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song 
 of the Cavalier." With our modern and alto- 
 gether rational ideas of the absurdity and impi- 
 ety of warfare, we are not precisely in that 
 frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with 
 the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real 
 excellence of the poem. To do this fully, we 
 must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the soul 
 of the old cavalier. 
 
 Then mounte ! then mounte ! brave gallants, all, 
 
 And don your helmes amaine: 
 Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call 
 
 Us to the field againe. 
 No shrewish teares shall fill our eye 
 
 When the sword-hilt's in our hand, 
 Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe 
 
 For the f ayrest of the land ; 
 Let piping swaine, and craven wight. 
 
 Thus weepe and puling crye, 
 Our business is like men to fight, 
 
 And hero-like to die!
 
 POEMS. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE POEMS. 
 
 These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with 
 a view to their redemption from the many improve- 
 ments to which they have been subjected while going 
 at random "the rounds of the press. " I am naturally 
 anxious that what I have written should circulate as I 
 wrote it, if it circulate at all. In defense of my own 
 taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that 
 I think nothing in this volume of much value to the , 
 public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be 
 controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, 
 any serious effort in what, under happier circum- 
 stances, would have been the field of my choice. With 
 me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion ; and 
 the passions should be held in reverence ; they must not 
 they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the 
 paltry compensations, or the more paltry commenda- 
 tions, of mankind. E. A. P.
 
 \
 
 POEMS. 
 
 THE RAVEN. 
 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pon- 
 dered weak and weary, 
 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of 
 forgotten lore 
 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly 
 there came a tapping 
 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at 
 my cham-ber door. 
 
 " 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, ** tapping at 
 my chamber door 
 
 Only this and nothing more. " 
 
 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak 
 
 December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its 
 
 ghost upon the floor. 
 Eagerly I wished the morrow ; vainly I had 
 
 sought to borrow 
 From my books surcease of sorrow sorrow for 
 
 the lost Lenore 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the 
 
 angels name Lenore 
 
 Nameless here for evermore. 
 
 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each 
 
 purple curtain 
 Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors 
 
 never felt before ; 
 
 155
 
 156 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I 
 
 stood repeating 
 '* 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my 
 
 chamber door 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my 
 
 chamber door; 
 
 This it is and nothing more." 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating 
 then no longer, 
 
 4 'Sir," said I, "or, Madam, truly your for- 
 giveness I implore ; 
 
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently 
 you came rapping, 
 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at 
 my chamber door, 
 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you" -here I 
 
 opened wide the door 
 
 Darkness there and nothing more. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood 
 there wondering, fearing, 
 
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever 
 dared to dream before; 
 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness 
 gave no token, 
 
 And the only word there spoken was the whis- 
 pered word, "Lenore!" 
 
 This I whispered, and an echo murmured back 
 the word, "Lenore!" 
 
 Merely this and nothing more. 
 
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul 
 within me burning,
 
 FOE'S POEMS. K7 
 
 Soon again I heard a tapping something louder 
 than before. 
 
 " Surely," said I, " surely that is something at 
 my window lattice ; 
 
 Let me see, then, what thereat is and this 
 mystery explore 
 
 Let my heart be still a moment and this mys- 
 tery explore ; 
 
 'Tis the wind and nothing more. " 
 
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with 
 
 many a flirt and flutter 
 In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly 
 
 days of yore. 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute 
 
 stopped or stayed he, 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above 
 
 my chamber door 
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my 
 
 chamber door 
 
 Perched, and sat and nothing more. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy 
 into smiling, 
 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the counte- 
 nance it wore, 
 
 " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, " 
 I said, "art sure no craven, 
 
 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering 
 from the Nightly shore 
 
 n ell me what thy lordly name is on the 
 Night's Plutonian shore!" 
 
 Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."
 
 158 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear 
 
 discourse so plainly. 
 Though its answer little meaning little 
 
 relevancy bore; 
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living 
 
 human being 
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above 
 
 his chamber door 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above 
 
 his chamber door, 
 
 With such name as "Nevermore." 
 
 But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid 
 
 bust, spoke only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word 
 
 he did outpour; 
 Nothing farther then he uttered ; not a feather 
 
 then he fluttered 
 Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other 
 
 friends have flown before 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes 
 
 have flown before. ' ' 
 
 Then the bird said "Nevermore." 
 
 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so 
 aptly spoken, 
 
 "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only 
 stock and store 
 
 Caught from some unhappy master whom un- 
 merciful Disaster 
 
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs 
 one burden bore 
 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy 
 burden bore 
 
 Of * Never nevermore.' tf
 
 POE'S POEMS. 159 
 
 But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul 
 into smiling, 
 
 Straight 1 wheeled a cushioned seat in front of 
 bird and bust and door; 
 
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I "betook my- 
 self to linking 
 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous 
 bird of yore 
 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and 
 ominous bird of yore 
 
 Meant in croaking "Nevermore." 
 
 Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable 
 expressing 
 
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into 
 my bosom's core; 
 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at 
 ease reclining 
 
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp- 
 light gloated o'er, 
 
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp- 
 light gloating o'er 
 
 She shall press, ah, nevermore. 
 
 Then, methought, the air grew denser, per- 
 fumed from an unseen censer 
 
 Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled 
 on the tufted floor. 
 
 "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee 
 by these angels he hath sent thee 
 
 Respite respite and nepenthe from thy mem- 
 ories of Lenore ! 
 
 Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe and forget 
 this lost Lenore!" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 
 160 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet 
 
 still, if bird or devil! 
 Whether tempest sent, or whether tempest 
 
 tossed thee here ashore, 
 Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land 
 
 enchanted 
 On this home by Horror haunted tell me 
 
 truly, I implore 
 Is there is there balm in Gilead? tell me 
 
 tell me, I implore!" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 
 
 "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil prophet 
 
 still, if bird or devil! 
 By that Heaven that bends above us by that 
 
 God we both adore 
 Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the 
 
 distant Aidenn, 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels 
 
 name Lenore 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the 
 
 angels name Lenore." 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 
 
 "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or 
 
 fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting 
 "Get thee back into the tempest and the 
 
 Night's Plutonian shore! 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie 
 
 thy soul hath spoken ! 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust 
 
 above my door! 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take 
 
 thy form from off my door ! ' ' 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 
 POE'S POEMS. 161 
 
 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, 
 
 still is sitting 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my 
 
 chamber door ; 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's 
 
 that is dreaming, 
 And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws 
 
 his shadow on the floor; 
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies 
 
 floating on the floor, 
 
 Shall be lifted nevermore. 
 
 LENORE. 
 
 Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown 
 
 forever ! 
 Let the bell toll ! a saintly soul floats on the 
 
 Stygian river; 
 And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? weep 
 
 now or never more! 
 See ! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy 
 
 love, Lenore! 
 Come! let the burial rite be read the funeral 
 
 song be sung! 
 An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever 
 
 died so young 
 A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she 
 
 died so young. 
 
 "Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and 
 
 hated her for her pride, 
 "And when she fell in feeble health, ye 
 
 blessed her that she died ! 
 "How shall the ritual, then, be read? the 
 
 requiem how be sung? 
 
 11 Foe's Poem*
 
 162 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 "By you by yours, the evil eye, by yours, 
 
 the slanderous tongue 
 "That did to death the innocence that died, 
 
 and died so young?" 
 
 Peccavimus ; but rave not thus! and let a 
 
 Sabbath song 
 Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel 
 
 no wrong! 
 The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with 
 
 Hope, that flew beside, 
 Leaving thee wild for the dear child that 
 
 should have been thy bride 
 For her, the fair and debonair, that now so 
 
 lowly lies, 
 The life upon her yellow hair but not within 
 
 her eyes 
 The life still there, upon her hair the death 
 
 upon her eyes. 
 
 "Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No 
 
 dirge will I upraise, 
 "But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean 
 
 of old days ! 
 '* Let no bell toll! lest her sweet soul, amid 
 
 its hallowed mirth, 
 "Should catch the note, as it doth float up from 
 
 the damned Earth. 
 M To friends above, from fiends below, the 
 
 indignant ghost is riven 
 "From Hell unto a high estate far up within 
 
 the Heaven 
 14 From grief and groan, to a golden throne, 
 
 beside the King of Heaven."
 
 POE'S POEMS. 163 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 At morn at noon at twilight dim- 
 Maria thou hast heard my hymn! 
 In joy and woe in good and ill 
 Mother of God, be with me still ! 
 When the Hours flew brightly by, 
 And not a cloud obscured the sky, 
 My soul, lest it should truant be, 
 Thy grace did guide to thine and thee. 
 Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast 
 Darkly my Present and my Past, 
 Let my Future radiant shine 
 With sweet hopes of thee and thine! 
 
 A VALEBTINE. 
 
 for her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous 
 
 eyes, 
 
 Byghtly expressive as the twins of Loeda. 
 Shajl find her own sweet name, that, nestling 
 
 lies 
 Upon, the page, enwrapped from every 
 
 reader. 
 Search narrowly the lines ! they hold a 
 
 treasure 
 
 Diving a talisman an amulet 
 That mu^t be worn at heart Search well the 
 
 measure 
 
 The word^j the syllables ! Do not forget 
 The trivi^lest point, or you may lose your 
 
 labor! 
 
 And yet there is in this no Gordian knot 
 Which one miht not undo without a saber, 
 If one could merely comprehend the plot
 
 164 . POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peer- 
 ing 
 
 Eyes scintillating soul, there lies perdus 
 Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hear- 
 ing 
 Of poets, by poets as the name is a poet's, 
 
 too. 
 Its letters, although naturally lying 
 
 Like the knight Pinto Mendez Ferdi- 
 
 nando 
 
 Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease try- 
 ing! 
 
 You will not read the riddle, though you do 
 the best you can do. 
 
 [To translate the address, read the first letter 
 of the first line in connection with the second 
 letter of the second line, the third letter of 
 the third line, the fourth of the fourth, and so 
 on to the end. The name will thus appear.] 
 
 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 Type of the antique Rome ! Rich reliquary 
 
 Of lofty contemplation left to Time 
 
 By buried centuries of pomp and power! 
 
 At length at length after so many days 
 
 Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 
 
 (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) 
 
 I kneel, an altered and humble man, 
 
 Amid thy shadows, and so drink within 
 
 My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory! 
 
 Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! 
 Silence! and Desolation and dim Night!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 165 
 
 I feel ye now I feel ye in your strength 
 O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king 
 Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane ! 
 O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee 
 Ever drew .down from out the quiet stars! 
 
 Here, where a hero fell, a column falls! 
 Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, 
 A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat ! 
 Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded 
 
 hair 
 Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and 
 
 thistle! 
 
 Here, where on golden throne the monarch 
 
 lolled, 
 
 Glides, specter-like, unto his marble home, 
 Lit by the wan light of the horned moon, 
 The swift and silent lizard of the stones ! 
 
 But stay ! these walls these ivy-clad arcades 
 These moldering plinths these sad and black- 
 ened shafts 
 These vague entablatures this crumbling 
 
 frieze 
 These shattered cornices this wreck this 
 
 ruin 
 These stones alas! these gray stones are 
 
 they all- 
 All of the famed, and the colossal left 
 By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me? 
 
 "Not all" the Echoes answer me "not all! 
 "Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever 
 "From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise, 
 "As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
 
 166 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 4 We rule the hearts of mightiest men we rule 
 'With a despotic sway all giant minds. 
 'We are not impotent we pallid stones. 
 4 Not all our power is gone not^all our fame 
 'Not all the magic of our high renown 
 'Not all the wonder that encircles us 
 *Not all the mysteries that in us lie 
 'Not all the memories that hang upon 
 'And cling around about us as a garment, 
 'Clothing us in a robe of more than glory." 
 
 TO HELEN. 
 
 I saw thee once once only years ago: 
 
 I must not say how many but not many. 
 
 It was a July midnight; and from out 
 
 A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, 
 
 soaring, 
 Sought a precip'itate pathway up through 
 
 heaven, 
 
 There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, 
 With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, 
 Upon the upturn 'd faces of a thousand 
 Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, 
 Where no winds dared to stir, unless on tip- 
 toe 
 
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses 
 That gave out, in return for the love-light, 
 Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death 
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses 
 That smiled and died in this parterre, en- 
 chanted 
 
 By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence, 
 Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
 
 POE'S POEMS. 167 
 
 I saw thee half reclining; while the moon 
 Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses, 
 And on thine own, upturn'd alas, in sorrow! 
 Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight 
 Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,) 
 That bade me pause before that garden gate, 
 To breathe the incense of those slumbering 
 
 roses? 
 
 No footsteps stirred : the hated world all slept, 
 Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven ! oh, 
 
 God! 
 How my heart beats in coupling those two 
 
 words !) 
 
 Save only thee and me. I paused I looked 
 ' And in an instant all things disappeared. 
 (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) 
 The pearly luster of the moon went out: 
 The mossy banks and the meandering paths, 
 The happy flowers and the repining trees, 
 Were seen no more : the very roses' odors 
 Died in the arms of the adoring airs. 
 All all expired save thee save less than thou: 
 Save only the divine light in thine eyes 
 Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. 
 I saw but them -.they were the world to me. 
 I saw but them saw only them for hours 
 Saw only them until the moon went down. 
 What wild heart-histories seemed to lie en- 
 written 
 
 Upon those crystalline, pelestiaL spheres! 
 How dark a woe ! yet how sublime a hope ! 
 How silently serene a sea of pride ! 
 How daring an ambition ! yet how deep 
 How fathomless a capacity for love!
 
 168 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 But now, at length, dear Dian sank from 
 
 sight, 
 
 Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; 
 And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees 
 Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. 
 They would not go they never yet have gone. 
 Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, 
 They have not left me (as my hopes have) 
 
 since 
 They follow me they lead me through the 
 
 years 
 
 They are my ministers yet I their slave. 
 Their office is to illumine and enkindle 
 My duty, to be saved by their bright light, 
 And purified in their electric fire, 
 And sanctified in their elysian fire. 
 They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), 
 And aire far up in Heaven the stars I kneel to 
 In the sad, silent watches of my night ; 
 While even in the meridian glare of day 
 I see them still two sweetly scintillant 
 Venuses, unextinguished by the sun ! 
 
 TO . 
 
 Not long ago, the writer of these lines, 
 In the mad pride of intellectuality, 
 Maintained "the power of words" denied 
 
 that ever 
 
 A thought arose within the human brain 
 Beyond the utterance of the human tongue: 
 And now, as if in mockery of that boast, 
 Two words two foreign soft dissyllables 
 Italian tones, made only to be murmured
 
 POE'S POEMS. 169 
 
 By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew 
 That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon 
 
 hill," 
 
 Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart, 
 Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of 
 
 thought, 
 
 Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions 
 Than even the seraph harper, Israfel, 
 (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's 
 
 creatures,") 
 Could hope to utter. And I ! my spells are 
 
 broken. 
 The pen falls powerless from my shivering 
 
 hand. 
 With thy dear name as text, though bidden by 
 
 thee, 
 
 I cannot write I cannot speak or think 
 Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling, 
 This standing motionless upon the golden 
 Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams, 
 Gazing entranced, adown the gorgeous vista, 
 And thrilling as I see, upon the right, 
 Upon the left, and all the way along, 
 Amid unpurpled vapors, far away 
 To where the prospect terminates thee only. 
 
 ULALUME. 
 
 The skies they were ashen and sober; 
 
 The leaves they were crisped and sere 
 The leaves they were withering and sere- 
 It was light in the lonesome October 
 
 Of my most immemorial year; 
 It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 
 13 Fotfs Poemp,
 
 170 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 In the misty mid region of Weir 
 It was down by the dank tarn of Auber 
 
 In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 
 Here once, through an alley Titanic, 
 
 Of cypress, I roamed with my soul 
 
 Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. 
 These were days when my heart was volcanic 
 
 As the scoriae rivers that roll 
 
 As the lavas that restlessly roll 
 Their sulphurous currents down Mount Yaanek 
 
 In the ultimate climes of the pole 
 That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 
 
 In the realms of the boreal pole. 
 
 Our talk had been serious and sober, 
 
 But our thoughts they were palsied and 
 
 sere 
 Our memories were treacherous and sere 
 
 For we knew not the month was October, 
 
 And we marked not the night of the year-^ 
 (Ah, night of all nights in the year !) 
 
 We noted not the dim lake of Auber 
 
 (Though once we had journeyed down 
 here) 
 
 Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, 
 
 Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 
 
 And now, as the night was senescent 
 And star-dials pointed to morn 
 As the star-dials hinted of morn 
 
 At the end of our path a liquescent 
 And nebulous luster was born, 
 
 Out of which a miraculous crescent 
 Arose with a duplicate horn
 
 POE'S POEMS. 171 
 
 Astarte's bediamonded crescent 
 Distinct with its duplicate horn. 
 
 And I said "She is warmer than Dian: 
 She rolls through an ether of sighs 
 She revels in a region of sighs : 
 
 She has seen that the tears are not dry on 
 
 These cheeks, where the worm never dies, 
 
 And has come past the stars of the Lion 
 To point us the path to the skies 
 To the Lethean peace of the skies 
 
 Come up, in despite of the Lion, 
 
 To shine on us with her bright eyes 
 
 Come up through the lair of the Lion, 
 With love in her luminous eyes." 
 
 But Psyche, uplifting her finger, 
 
 Said "Sadly this star I mistrust 
 Her pallor I strangely mistrust : 
 
 Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! 
 
 Oh, fly! let us fly! for we must." 
 
 In terror she spoke, letting sink her 
 
 Wings until they trailed in the dust 
 
 In agony sobbed letting sink her 
 
 Plumes till they trailed in the dust 
 Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 
 
 I replied "This is nothing but dreaming: 
 Let us on by this tremulous light! 
 Let us bathe in this crystalline light ! 
 
 Its Sybilic splendor is beaming 
 
 With Hope and in Beauty to-night: 
 See ! it flickers up the sky through the 
 night ! 
 
 Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming
 
 172 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 And be sure it will lead us aright 
 We safely may trust to a gleaming 
 That cannot but guide us aright, 
 Since it flickers up to Heaven through the 
 night. ' 
 
 Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, 
 And tempted her out of her gloom 
 And conquered her scruples and gloom ; 
 
 And we passed to the end of the vista, 
 
 But were stopped by the door of a tomb 
 By the door of a legended tomb ; 
 
 And I said "What is written, sweet sister 
 On the door of this legended tomb?" 
 She replied "Ulalume Ulalume 
 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!" 
 
 Then my heart it grew ashen and sober 
 
 As the leaves that were crisped and sere 
 As the leaves that were withering and sere, 
 
 And I cried "It was surely October 
 On this very night of last year 
 That I journeyed I journeyed down 
 
 here 
 That I brought a dread burden down 
 
 here 
 
 On this night of all nights in the year, 
 Ah, what demon has tempted me here? 
 
 Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber 
 This misty mid region of Weir. 
 
 Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, 
 This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir/'
 
 POE'S POEMS. 173 
 
 THE BELLS. 
 
 Hear the sledges with the bells 
 
 Silver bells! 
 
 V' hat a world of merriment their melody fore- 
 tells! 
 How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 
 
 In the icy air of night! 
 While the stars that oversprinkle 
 All the heavens seem to twinkle 
 With the crystalline delight; 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
 
 To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
 From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 
 Bells, bells, bells 
 From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 
 
 n. 
 
 Hear the mellow wedding bells, 
 
 Golden bells! 
 
 What a world of happiness their harmony fore- 
 tells! 
 
 Through the balmy air of night 
 How they ring out their delight! 
 From the molten-golden notes, 
 
 And all in tune, 
 What a liquid ditty floats 
 To the turtle-dove that listens, while 
 
 she gloats 
 On the moon! 
 Oh, trom out the sounding cells,
 
 174 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! 
 How it swells! 
 How it dwells 
 
 On the Future ! how it tells 
 Of the rapture that impels 
 To the swinging and the ringing 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 
 Bells, bells, bells 
 To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells. 
 
 Hear the loud alarum bells 
 
 Brazen bells! 
 What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency 
 
 tells! 
 
 In the startled ear of night 
 How they scream out their affright! 
 Too much horrified to speak, 
 They can only shriek, shriek, 
 
 Out of tune, 
 In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the 
 
 fire, 
 
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and 
 frantic fire 
 
 Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
 With a desperate desire, 
 And a resolute endeavor 
 Now now to sit or never, 
 By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
 Oh, the bells, bells, bells! 
 What a tale their terror tells 
 
 Of Despair! 
 How they clang, and clash, and roar.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 175 
 
 What a horror they outpour 
 On the bosom of the palpitating air! 
 Yet the ear it fully knows, 
 By the twanging, 
 And the clanging, 
 How the danger ebbs and flows: 
 Yet the ear distinctly tells, 
 In the jangling, 
 And the wrangling, 
 How the danger sinks and swells, 
 By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of 
 the bells 
 Of the bells 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 
 Bells, bells, bells 
 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! 
 
 Hear the tolling of the bells 
 
 Iron bells! 
 What a world of solemn thought their monody 
 
 compels ! 
 
 In the silence of the night, 
 How we shiver with affright, 
 At the melancholy menace of their tone; 
 For every sound that floats 
 From the rust within their throats 
 
 Is a groan. 
 
 And the people ah, the people 
 They that dwell up in the steeple, 
 
 All alone, 
 And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 
 
 In that muffled monotone, 
 Feel a glory in so rolling
 
 176 POE'S POEMS 
 
 On the human heart a stone 
 They are neither man nor woman 
 They are neither brute nor human 
 
 They are Ghouls: 
 And their king it is who tolls; 
 And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
 
 Rolls 
 
 A paean from the bells! 
 And his merry bosom swells 
 With the paean of the bells! 
 And he dances, and he yells; 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
 To the paean of the bells 
 
 Of the bells: 
 
 Keeping time, time, time 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
 
 To the throbbing of the bells 
 Of the bells, bells, bells 
 
 To the sobbing of the bells; 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 
 As he knells, knells, knells, 
 In a happy Runic rhyme, 
 
 To the rolling of the bells 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, 
 
 To the tolling of the bells 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells- 
 Bells, bells, bells 
 To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 
 
 AN ENIGMA. 
 
 '* Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce, 
 "Half an ideal in the profoundest sonnet
 
 11 1 was a child and she was a child." Page 177. 
 
 Poe's Poems.
 
 FOE'S POEMS. 179 
 
 TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 Because I feel that in the Heavens above, 
 
 The angels, whispering to one another, 
 Can find, among their burning terms of love, 
 
 None so devotional as that of "Mother," 
 Therefore by that dear name I long have 
 called you 
 
 You who are more than mother unto me, 
 And fill my heart of hearts, where death in- 
 stalled you, 
 
 In setting my Virginia's spirit free. 
 My mother my own mother, who died early, 
 
 Was but the mother of myself; but you 
 Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, 
 
 And thus are dearer than the mother I 
 
 knew 
 By that infinity with which my wife 
 
 Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. 
 
 THE HAUNTED PALACE. 
 
 In the greenest of our valleys 
 
 By good angels tenanted, 
 Once a 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! 
 
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
 
 On its roof did float and flow, 
 (This all this was in the olden 
 
 Time long ago,)
 
 180 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 And eveiy gentle air that dallied, 
 
 In that sweet day, 
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
 
 A winged odor went away. 
 
 Wanderers in that happy valley, 
 
 Through two luminous windows, saw 
 Spirits moving musically, 
 
 To a lutes' swell-tuned law, 
 Round about a throne where, sitting 
 
 (Porphyrogene !) 
 In state his glory well befitting, 
 
 The ruler of the realm was seen. 
 
 And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
 
 Was the fair palace door, 
 Through which came flowing, flowing, flow- 
 ing 
 
 And sparkling evermore, 
 A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 
 
 Was but to sing, 
 In voices of surpassing beauty, 
 
 The wit and wisdom of their king. 
 
 But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
 
 Assailed the monarch's high estate. 
 (Ah, let us mourn ! for never morrow 
 
 Shall dawn upon him desolate!) 
 And round about his home the glory 
 
 That blushed and bloomed, 
 Is but a dim-remembered story 
 
 Of the old time entombed. 
 
 And travelers, now, within that valley, 
 Through the red-litten windows see
 
 POE'S POEMS. 181 
 
 Vast forms, that move fantastically 
 
 To the discordant melody, 
 While, like a ghastly rapid river, 
 
 Through the pale door 
 A hideous throng rush out forever 
 
 And laugh but smile no more. 
 
 THE CONQUEROR WORM. 
 
 Lo! 'tis a gala night 
 
 Within the lonesome latter years; 
 An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 
 
 In veils, and drowned in tears, 
 Sit in a theater, to see 
 
 A play of hopes and fears, 
 While the orchestra breathes fitfully 
 
 The music of the spheres. 
 
 Mimes, in the form of God on high, 
 
 Mutter and mumble low, 
 And hither and thither fly 
 
 Mere puppets they, who come and go 
 At bidding of vast formless things 
 
 That shift the scenery to and fro, 
 Flapping from out their Condor wings 
 
 Invisible Woe! 
 
 That motely drama oh, be sure 
 
 It shall not be forgot ! 
 With its Phantom chased for evermore, 
 
 By a crowd that seize it not, 
 Through a circle that ever returneth in 
 
 To the self-same spot, 
 And much of Madness, and more of Sin 
 
 And Horror the soul of the plot.
 
 182 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 But see, amid the mimic rout 
 
 A crawling shape intrude ! 
 A blood-red thing that writhes from out 
 
 The scenic solitude ! 
 It writhes! it writhes! with mortal pangs 
 
 The mimes become its food, 
 And the angels sob at vermin fangs 
 
 In human gore imbued. 
 
 Out out are the lights out all! 
 
 And, over each quivering form, 
 The curtain, a funeral pall, 
 
 Comes down with the rush of a storm, 
 And the angels, all pallid and wan, 
 
 Uprising, unveiling, affirm 
 That the play is the tragedy, "Man," 
 
 And its hero the Conqueror Worm. 
 
 TO F S S. O D. 
 
 Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart 
 
 From its present pathway part not ! 
 Being everything which now thou art, 
 
 Be nothing which thou art not. 
 So with the world thy gentle ways, 
 
 Thy grace, thy more than beauty, 
 Shall be an endless theme of praise, 
 
 And love a simple duty. 
 
 TO ONE IN PARADISE. 
 
 Thou wast that all to me, love, 
 For which my soul did pine 
 
 A green isle in the sea, love, 
 A fountain and a shrine,
 
 POE'S POEMS. 183 
 
 All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 
 And all the flowers were mine. 
 
 Ah, dream too bright to last! 
 
 Ah, starry Hope ! that didst arise 
 But to be overcast! 
 
 A voice from out the Future cries, 
 "On! on!" but o'er the Past 
 
 (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies 
 Mute, motionless, aghast! 
 
 For, alas! alas! with me 
 
 The light of Life is o'er! 
 "No more no more no more! " 
 
 (Such language holds the solemn sea 
 To the sands upon the shore) 
 
 Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, 
 Or the stricken eagle soar! 
 
 And all my days are trances, 
 
 And all my nightly dreams 
 Are where thy dark eye glances, 
 
 And where thy footstep gleams 
 In what ethereal dances, 
 
 By what eternal streams. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF UNREST. 
 
 Once it smiled a silent dell 
 Where the people did not dwell; 
 They had gone unto the wars, 
 Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, 
 Nightly, from their azure towers, 
 To keep watch above the flowers, 
 In the midst of which all day
 
 184 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 The red sun-light lazily lay. ?; 
 
 Now each visitor shall confess 
 
 The sad valley's restlessness. 
 
 Nothing there is motionless '\ 
 
 Nothing save the airs that brood 
 
 Over the magic solitude. 
 
 Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees 
 
 That palpitate like the chill seas 
 
 Around the misty Hebrides! 
 
 Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven 
 
 That rustle through the unquiet Heaven 
 
 Uneasily, from morn till even, 
 
 Over the violets there that lie 
 
 In myriad types of the human eye 
 
 Over the lilies there that wave 
 
 And weep above a nameless grave! 
 
 They wave : from out their fragrant tops 
 
 Eternal dews come down in drops. 
 
 They weep: from off their delicate stems 
 
 Perennial tears descend in gems. 
 
 THE CITY IN THE SEA. 
 
 Lo! Death has reared himself a throne 
 
 In a strange city lying alone 
 
 Far down within the dim West, 
 
 Where the good and the bad and the worst 
 
 and the best 
 
 Have gone to their eternal rest. 
 Their shrines and palaces and towers 
 (Time-eaten towers that tremble not !) 
 Resemble nothing that is ours. 
 Around, by lifting winds forgot,
 
 FOE'S POEMS. 185 
 
 Resignedly beneath the sky 
 The melancholy waters lie. 
 
 No rays from the holy heaven come down 
 On the long night-time of that town; 
 But light from out the lurid sea 
 Streams up the turrets silently 
 Gleams up the pinnacles far and free 
 Up domes up spires up kingly halls 
 Up fanes up Babylon-like walls 
 Up shadowy long- forgotten bowers 
 Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers 
 Up many and many a marvelous shrine 
 Whose wreathed friezes intertwine 
 The viol, the violet, and the vine. 
 Resignedly beneath the sky 
 The melancholy waters lie. 
 So blend the turrets and shadows there 
 That all seem pendulous in air, 
 While from a proud tower in the town 
 Death looks gigantically down. 
 
 There open fanes and gaping graves 
 Yawn level with the luminous waves 
 But not the riches there that lie 
 In each idol's diamond eye 
 Not the gayly-jeweled dead 
 Tempt the waters from their bed; 
 For no ripples curl, alas! 
 Along that wilderness of glass 
 No swellings tell that winds may be 
 Upon some far-off happier sea 
 No heavings hint that winds have been 
 On seas less hideously serene.
 
 186 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 But lo, a stir is in the air ! 
 The wave there is a movement there! 
 As if the towers had thrust aside, 
 In slightly sinking, the dull tide 
 As if their tops had feebly given 
 A void within the filmy Heaven. 
 The waves have now a redder glow- 
 The hours are breathing faint and low 
 And when, amid no earthly moans, 
 Down, down that town shall settle hence, 
 Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, 
 Shall do it reverence. 
 
 THE SLEEPER. 
 
 At midnight, in the month of June, 
 I stand beneath the mystic moon. 
 An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, 
 Exhales from out her golden rim, 
 And, softly dripping, drop by drop, 
 Upon the quiet mountain top, 
 Steals drowsily and musically 
 Into the universal valley. 
 The rosemary nods upon the grave ; 
 The lily lolls upon the wave ; 
 Wrapping the fog about its breast, 
 The ruin molders into rest ; 
 Looking like Lethe, see! the lake 
 A conscious slumber seems to take, 
 And would not, for the world, awake. 
 All Beauty sleeps ! and lo ! where lies 
 Her casement open to the skies, 
 Irene, with her Destinies!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 187 
 
 Oh, lady bright ! can it be right 
 This window open to the night? 
 The wanton airs, from the tree-top, 
 Laughingly through the lattice drop 
 The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, 
 Flit through thy chamber in and out 
 And wave the curtain canopy 
 So fitfully so fearfully- 
 Above the closed and fringed lid 
 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid 
 That, o'er the floor and down the wall, 
 Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall ! 
 Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? 
 Why and what art thou dreaming here? 
 Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas, 
 A wonder to these garden trees! 
 Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! 
 Strange, above all, thy length of tress, 
 And this all solemn silentness! 
 
 The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, 
 Which is enduring, so be deep ! 
 Heaven have her in its sacred keep 
 This chamber changed for one more holy, 
 This bed for one more melancholy, 
 I pray to God that she may lie 
 Forever with unopened eye, 
 While the dim sheeted ghosts go by ! 
 
 My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, 
 
 As it is lasting, so be deep! 
 
 Soft may the worms about her creep! 
 
 Far in the forest, dim and old, 
 
 For her may some tall vault unfold
 
 188 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Some vault that oft hath flung its black 
 And winged pannels fluttering back, 
 Triumphant, o'er the crested palls, 
 Of her grand family funerals 
 Some sepulcher, remote, alone, 
 Against whose portal she hath thrown, 
 In childhood, many an idle stone 
 Some tomb from out whose sounding door 
 She ne'er shall force an echo more. 
 Thrilling to think, poor child of sin 
 It was the dead who groaned within. 
 
 SILENCE. 
 
 There are some qualities some incorporate 
 
 things, 
 
 That have a double life, which thus is made 
 A type of that twin entity which springs 
 From matter and light, evinced in solid and 
 
 shade. 
 
 There is a two-fold Silence sea and shore 
 Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places, 
 Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn 
 
 graces. 
 
 Some human memories and tearful lore, 
 Render him terrorless: his name's "No More," 
 He is the corporate Silence; dread him not! 
 
 No power hath he of evil in himself, 
 But should some urgent tate (untimely lot!) 
 
 Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf. 
 That haunteth the lone regions where hath 
 
 trod 
 No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 189 
 
 A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 
 
 Take this kiss upon the brow ! 
 
 And, in parting from you now, 
 
 Thus much let me avow 
 
 You are not wrong, who deem 
 
 That my days have been a dream; 
 
 Yet if hope has flown away 
 
 In a night, or in a day, 
 
 In a vision, or in none, 
 
 Is it therefore the less gone? 
 
 All that we see or seem 
 
 Is but a dream within a dream. 
 
 I stand amid the roar 
 Of a surf -tormented shore, 
 And I hold with my hand 
 Grains of the golden sand 
 How few ! yet how they creep 
 Through my ringers to the deep. 
 While I weep while I weep! 
 O God! can I not grasp 
 Them with a tighter clasp? 
 O God ! can I not save 
 One from the pitiless wave? 
 Is all that we see or seem 
 But a dream within a dream? 
 
 DREAMLAND. 
 
 By a route obscure and lonely, 
 Haunted by ill angels only, 
 Where an Eidolon, named Night, 
 On a black throne reigns upright, 
 I have reached these lands but newly
 
 19U FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 From an ultimate dim Thule 
 From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime 
 Out of Space out of Time. 
 
 Bottomless vales and boundless floods, 
 And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, 
 With forms that no man can discover 
 For the dews that drip all over; 
 Mountains toppling evermore 
 Into seas without a shore; 
 Seas that restlessly aspire, 
 Surging, unto skies of fire ; 
 Lakes that endlessly outspread 
 Their lone waters lone and dead, 
 Their still waters still and chilly 
 With the snows of the lolling lily. 
 
 By the lakes that thus outspread 
 Their lone waters, lone and dead 
 Their sad waters, sad and chilly 
 With the snows of the lolling lily, 
 By the mountains near the river 
 Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, 
 By the gray woods, by the swamp 
 Where the toad and the newt encamp, 
 By the dismal tarns and pools 
 Where dwell the Ghouls 
 By each spot the most unholy 
 In each nook most melancholy, 
 There the traveler meets aghast 
 Sheeted Memories of the Past 
 Shrouded forms that start and sigh 
 As they pass the wanderer by 
 *White-robed forms of friends long given, 
 In agony, to the Earth and Heaven.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 191 
 
 For the heart whose woes are legion 
 
 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region 
 
 For the spirit that walks in shadow 
 
 "Tis oh 'tis an Eldorado! 
 
 But the traveler, traveling through it, 
 
 May not dare not openly view it; 
 
 Never its mysteries are exposed 
 
 To the weak human eye unclosed ; 
 
 So wills its King, who hath forbid 
 
 The uplifting of the fringed lid ; 
 
 And thus the sad Soul that here passes 
 
 Beholds it but through darkened glasses. 
 
 By a route obscure and lonely, 
 
 Haunted by ill angels only, 
 
 Where an Eidolon, named Night, 
 
 On a black throne reigns upright, 
 
 I have wandered home but newly 
 
 From this ultimate dim Thule. 
 
 TO ZANTE. 
 
 Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, 
 
 Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! 
 How many memories of what radiant hours 
 
 At sight of thee and thine at once awake ! 
 How many scenes of what departed bliss ! 
 
 How many thoughts of what entombed 
 
 hopes ! 
 How many visions of a maiden that is 
 
 No more no more upon thy verdant slopes! 
 No more ! alas, that magical sad sound 
 
 Transforming all! Thy charms shall please 
 
 no more ! 
 Thy memory no more ! Accursed ground
 
 192 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Henceforth I hold thy flower-enameled shore, 
 O hyacinthine isle ! O purple Zante ! 
 "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levantea!" 
 
 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 gill! 
 And never a flake 
 That the vapor can make 
 With the moon-tints of purpie and 
 
 pearl, 
 
 Can vie with the modest Eulalie 's most unre- 
 garded 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 
 violent eye.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 193 
 
 ELDORADO. 
 
 Gaily bedight, 
 
 A gallant knight, 
 In sunshine and in shadow, 
 
 Had journeyed long, 
 
 Singing a song, 
 In search of Eldorado. 
 
 But he grew old 
 
 This knight so bold 
 And o'er his heart a shadow 
 
 Fell as he found 
 
 No spot of ground 
 That looked like Eldorado. 
 
 And, as his strength 
 
 Failed him at length, 
 He met a pilgrim shadow 
 
 *' Shadow, " said he, 
 
 44 Where can it be 
 This land of Eldorado?" 
 
 "Over the Mountains 
 
 Of the Moon, 
 Down the Valley of the Shadow r 
 
 Ride, boldly ride," 
 
 The shade replied, 
 "If you seek for Eldorado!" 
 
 ISRAFEL.* 
 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 
 
 *And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings arc a lute, 
 and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. 
 KORAN. 
 
 13 Foe's Poems.
 
 194 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 " Whose heart-strings are a lute;'* 
 None sing so wildly well 
 As the angel Israfel, 
 And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 
 Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 
 
 Of his voice, all mute. 
 
 Tottering above 
 
 In her highest noon, 
 
 The enamored moon 
 Blushes with love, 
 
 While, to listen, the red levin 
 
 (With the rapid Pleiads, even, 
 
 Which were seven,) 
 
 Pauses in Heaven. 
 
 And they say (the starry choir 
 And the other listening things) 
 
 That Israfeli's fire 
 
 Is owing to that lyre 
 
 By which he sits and sings 
 
 The trembling living wire 
 Of those unusual strings. 
 
 But the skies that angels trod, 
 Where deep thoughts are a duty 
 
 Where Love's a grown up God 
 Where the Houri glances are 
 
 Imbued with all the beauty 
 Which we worship in a star. 
 
 Therefore, thou art not wrong, 
 
 Israfeli, who despisest 
 An unimpassioned song; 
 To thee the laurels belong,
 
 ' The wreath is on my brow." Page 199. 
 
 Poe's Poems.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 195 
 
 Best bard, because the wisest! 
 Merrily live, and long ! 
 
 The ecstasies above 
 With thy burning measures suit 
 
 Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, 
 With the fervor of thy lute- 
 Well may the stars be mute ! 
 
 Yes, Heaven is thine, but this 
 Is a world of sweets and sours; 
 Our flowers are merely flowers, 
 
 And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
 Is the sunshine of ours. 
 
 If I could dwell 
 Where Israfel 
 
 Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
 He might not sing so wildly well 
 
 A mortal melody, 
 While a bolder note than this might swell 
 
 From my lyre within the sky. 
 
 FOR ANNIE. 
 
 Thank Heaven ! the crisis 
 
 The danger is past, 
 And the lingering illness 
 
 Is over at last 
 And the fever called "Living" 
 
 Is conquered at last 
 
 Sadly, I know 
 
 I am shorn of my strength, 
 And no muscle I move
 
 196 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 As I lie at full length 
 But no matter! I feel 
 I am better at length. 
 
 And I rest so composed, 
 Now, in my bed, 
 That any beholder 
 
 Might fancy me dead 
 Might start at beholding me, 
 Thinking me dead. 
 
 The moaning and groaning, 
 The sighing and sobbing, 
 
 Are quieted now, 
 
 With that horrible throbbing 
 
 At heart : ah, that horrible, 
 Horrible throbbing! 
 
 The sickness the nausea 
 
 The pitiless pain 
 Have ceased, with the fever 
 
 That maddened my brain 
 With the fever called ** Living" 
 
 That burned in my brain. 
 
 And oh ! of all tortures 
 
 That torture the worst 
 Has abated the terrible 
 
 Torture of thirst 
 For the naphthaline river 
 
 Of Passion accurst: 
 I have drank of a water 
 
 That quenches all thirst: 
 
 Of a water that flows, 
 With a lullaby sound,
 
 POE'S POEMS. 197 
 
 From a spring but a very few 
 
 Feet under ground 
 From a cavern not very far 
 
 Down under ground. 
 
 And ah ! let it never 
 
 Be foolishly said 
 That my room it is gloomy 
 
 And narrow my bed ; 
 For man never slept 
 
 In a different bed 
 And, to sleep, you must slumber 
 
 In just such a bed. 
 
 My tantalized spirit 
 
 Here blandly reposes. 
 Forgetting, or never 
 
 Regretting its roses- 
 Its old agitations 
 
 Of myrtles and roses: 
 
 For now, while so quietly 
 
 Lying, it fancies 
 A holier odor 
 
 About it, of pansies 
 A rosemary odor, 
 
 Commingled with pansies 
 With rue and the beautiful 
 
 Puritan pansies. 
 
 And so it lies happily, 
 
 Bathing in many 
 A dream of the truth 
 
 And the beauty of Annie
 
 198 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Drowned in a bath 
 Of the tresses of Annie. 
 
 She tenderly kissed me, 
 
 She fondly caressed, 
 And then I fell gently 
 
 To sleep on her breast 
 Deeply to sleep 
 
 From the heaven of her breast. 
 
 When the light was extinguished, 
 
 She covered me warm 
 And she prayed to the angels 
 
 To keep me from harm 
 To the queen of the angels 
 
 To shield me from harm. 
 
 And I lie so composedly, 
 
 Now, in my bed, 
 (Knowing her love) 
 
 That you fancy me dead 
 And I rest so contentedly, 
 
 Now in my bed, 
 (With her love at my breast) 
 
 That you fancy me dead 
 That you shudder to look at me^ 
 
 Thinking me dead: 
 
 But my heart it is brighter 
 
 Than all of the many 
 Stars in the sky, 
 
 For it sparkles with Annie 
 It glows with the light 
 
 Of the love of my Annie 
 With the thought ot the light 
 
 Of the eyes of my Annie.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 199 
 
 TO . 
 
 I heed not that my earthly lot 
 
 Hath little of Earth in it 
 That years of love have been forgot 
 
 In the hatred of a minute : 
 I mourn not that the desolate 
 
 Are happier, sweet, than I, 
 But that you sorrow for my fate 
 
 Who am a passer by. 
 
 BRIDAL BALLAD. 
 
 THE ring is on my hand, 
 
 And the wreath is on my brow; 
 
 Satins and jewels grand 
 
 Are all at my command, 
 And I am happy now. 
 
 And my lord he loves me well ; 
 
 But, when first he breathed his vow, 
 I felt my bosom swell 
 For the words rang as a knell, 
 And the voice seemed his who fell 
 In the battle down the dell, 
 
 And who is happy now. 
 
 But he spoke to re-assure me, 
 
 And he kissed my pallid brow, 
 While a reverie came o'er me, 
 And to the church-yard bore me, 
 And I sighed to him before me, 
 Thinking him dead D'Elormie, 
 "Oh, I am happy now!"
 
 200 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 And thus the words were spoken, 
 
 And this the plighted vow, 
 And, though my faith be broken, 
 And, though my heart be broken, 
 Behold the golden token 
 That proves me happy now ! 
 
 Would God I could awaken! 
 
 For I dream I know not how, 
 And my soul is sorely shaken 
 Lest an evil step be taken, 
 Lest the dead who is forsaken 
 
 May not be happy now. 
 
 TO F- 
 
 Beloved ! amid the earnest woes 
 
 That crowd around my earthly path 
 
 (Drear path, alas ! where grows 
 
 Not even one lonely rose) 
 My soul at least a solace hath 
 
 In dreams of thee, and therein knows 
 
 An Eden of bland repose. 
 
 And thus thy memory is to me 
 Like some enchanted far-off isle 
 
 In some tumultuous sea 
 
 Some ocean throbbing far and free 
 With storms but where meanwhile 
 
 Serenest skies continually 
 
 Just o'er that one bright island smile.
 
 FOE'S POEMS. 201 
 
 SCENES FROM "POLITIAN." 
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA. 
 
 ROME. A Hall in a Palace. Alessandra and 
 Castiglione. 
 
 Alessandra. Thou art sad, Castiglione. 
 
 Castiglione. Sad! not I. 
 Oh, I'm the happiest, happiest man in Rome! 
 A few days more, thou knowest, my Ales- 
 sandra, 
 Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy! 
 
 Aless. Methinks thou hast a singular way 
 
 of showing 
 Thy happiness! what ails thee, cousin of 
 
 mine? 
 Why didst thou sigh so deeply? 
 
 Cas. Did I sigh? 
 
 I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion, 
 A silly a most silly fashion I have 
 When I am very happy. Did I sigh? (sighing). 
 
 Aless. Thou didst. Thou art not well. 
 
 Thou hast indulged 
 
 Too much of late, and I am vexed to see it. 
 Late hours and wine, Castiglione, these 
 Will ruin thee! thou art already altered 
 Thy looks are haggard nothing so wears away 
 The constitution as late hours and wine. 
 
 Cas. (musing.) Nothing, fair cousin, noth- 
 ing not even deep sorrow 
 Wears it away like evil hours and wine, 
 I will amend. 
 
 }4 Foe's Poems,
 
 202 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 Aless. Do it ! I would have thee drop 
 Thy riotous company, too fellows low-born - 
 111 suit the like with old Di Broglio's heir 
 And Alessandra's husband. 
 Cas. I will drop them. 
 Aless. Thou wilt thou must. Attend 
 
 thou also more 
 
 To thy dress and equipage they are over plain 
 For thy lofty rank and fashion much depends 
 Upon appearances. 
 Cas. I'll see to it. 
 Aless. Then see to it ! pay more attention, 
 
 sir, 
 To a becoming carriage much thou wantest 
 
 in dignity. 
 Cas. Much, much, oh much I want 
 
 In proper dignity. 
 
 Aless. (haughtily.) Thou mockest me, sir! 
 Cas. (abstractedly.) Sweet, gentle Lalage! 
 Aless. Heard I aright? 
 I speak to him he speaks of Lalage ! 
 Sir Count! (places her hand on his shoulder) 
 
 what art thou dreaming? he's not well! 
 What ails thee, sir? 
 
 Cas. (starting.) Cousin! fair cousin! 
 
 madam ! 
 
 I crave thy pardon indeed I am not well. 
 Your hand from off my shoulder, if you please. 
 This air is most oppressive! Madam the 
 Duke! 
 
 Enter Di Broglio. 
 
 Di Broglio. My son, I've news for thee! 
 hey? what's the matter? (observing 
 Alessandra.)
 
 POE'S POEMS. 203 
 
 I' the pouts? Kiss her, Castiglione! kiss her, 
 You dog ! and make it up, I say, this minute ! 
 I've news for you both. Politian is expected 
 Hourly in Rome Politian, Earl of Leicester! 
 We'll have him at the wedding. 'Tis his first 
 
 visit 
 To the" imperial city. 
 
 Aless. What? Politian 
 Of Britain, Earl of Leicester? 
 
 Di Brog. The same, my love. 
 We'll have him at the wedding. A man quite 
 
 young 
 In years, but gray in fame. I have not seen 
 
 him, 
 
 But Rumor speaks of him as of a prodigy 
 Pre-eminent in arts and arms, and wealth, 
 And high descent. We'll have him at the 
 wedding. 
 
 Aless. I have heard much of this Politian. 
 Gay, volatile and giddy is he not? 
 And little given to thinking. 
 
 Di Brog. Far from it, love. 
 No branch, they say, of all philosophy 
 So deep abstruse he has not mastered it. 
 Learned as few are learned. 
 
 Aless. 'Tis very strange! 
 I have known men have seen Politian 
 And sought his company. They speak of him 
 As one who entered madly into life, 
 Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs. ^ 
 
 Cas. Ridiculous^ Now I have seen Politian 
 And know him well nor learned nor mirthful 
 he.
 
 204 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 He is a dreamer and a man shut out 
 From common passions. 
 
 Di Brog. Children, we disagree. 
 Let us go forth and taste the fragrant air 
 Of the garden. Did I dream, or did I hear 
 Politian was a melancholy man? (exeunt.) 
 
 II. 
 
 ROME. A lady's apartment, with a window open, and 
 looking into a garden. Lalage, in deep mourning, 
 reading at a table on which lie some books and a 
 hand-mirror. In the background, Jacinta (a servant- 
 maid) leans carelessly upon a chair. 
 
 
 
 Lai. Jacinta! is it thou? 
 
 Jac. (pertly.) Yes, ma'am, I'm here. 
 
 Lai, I did not know, Jacinta, you were in 
 
 waiting. 
 
 Sit down ! let not my presence trouble you 
 Sit down ! for I am humble, most humble. 
 Jac. (aside.) 'Tis time. 
 
 (Jacinta seats herself in a side-long 
 manner upon the chair, resting her 
 elbows upon the back, and regarding 
 her mistress with a contemptuous 
 look. Lalage continues to read.) 
 Lai. 44 It in another climate," so he said, 
 "Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this 
 soil!" 
 
 (pauses turns over some leaves and re- 
 sumes.) 
 "No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor 
 
 shower 
 But Ocean ever to refresh mankind
 
 POE'S POEMS. 205 
 
 "Breathes the shrill spirit of the western 
 
 wind." 
 
 Oh, beautiful ! most beautiful ! how like 
 To what my fevered soul doth dream of 
 
 Heaven ! 
 O happy land! (pauses.) She died! the 
 
 maiden died ! 
 
 O still more happy maiden who couldst die ! 
 Jacinta! 
 
 (Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage 
 
 presently resumes.) 
 Again ! a similar tale 
 Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea! 
 Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of 
 
 the play 
 "She died full young" one Bossola answers 
 
 him 
 
 "I think not so her felicity 
 "Seemed to have years too many" Ah, luck- 
 less lady! 
 Jacinta (still no answer.) 
 
 Here's a far sterner story 
 But like oh, very like in its despair 
 Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily 
 A thousand hearts losing at length her own. 
 She died. Thus endeth the history and her 
 
 maids 
 
 Lean over her and weep two gentle maids 
 With gentle names Eiros and Charmion! 
 
 Rainbow and Dove! Jacinta! 
 
 Jac. (pettishly.) Madam, what is it? 
 Lai. Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind 
 As go down in the library and bring me 
 The Holy Evangelists.
 
 206 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Jac. Pshaw! (exit.) 
 Lai. If there be balm 
 
 For the wounded spirit in Gilead it is there! 
 Dew in the night-time of my bitter trouble 
 Will there be found "dew sweeter far than 
 
 that 
 
 Which hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon 
 hill." 
 
 (re-enter Jacinta, and throws a volume 
 
 on the table.) 
 There, ma'am, 's the book. Indeed she is very 
 
 troublesome, (aside.) 
 Lai. (astonished.) What didst thou say, 
 
 Jacinta? Have done aught 
 To grieve thee or to vex thee? I am sorry. 
 For thou hast served me long and ever been 
 Trustworthy and respectful. (resumes her 
 
 reading.) 
 
 Jac. I can't believe 
 She has any more jewels no no she gave 
 
 me all. (aside.) 
 Lai. What didst thou say, Jacinta? Now I 
 
 bethink me 
 
 Thou hast not spoken lately of thy wedding. 
 How fares good Ugo? and when is it to be* 
 Can I do aught? is there no further aid 
 Thou needest, Jacinta? 
 
 Jac. Is there no farther aid? 
 That's meant for me. (aside) I'm sure, 
 
 Madam, you need not 
 
 Be always throwing those jewels in my teeth. 
 Lai. Jewels! Jacinta, now indeed, Jacinta, 
 I thought not of the jewels. 
 Jac. Oh', perhaps not!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 207 
 
 But then I might have sworn it. After all, 
 There's Ugo says the ring is only paste, 
 For he's sure the Count Castiglione never 
 Would have given a real diamond to such as 
 
 you; 
 And at the best I'm certain, Madafen, you 
 
 cannot 
 Have use for jewels now. But I might have 
 
 sworn it. (exit.) 
 
 (Lalage bursts into tears and leans her 
 head upon the table after a short 
 pause raises it.) 
 
 Lai. Poor Lalage ! and is it come to this? 
 Thy servant maid ! but courage! 'tis but a 
 
 viper 
 Whom thou hast cherished to sting thee to tk 
 
 soul ! (taking up the mirror. ) 
 
 Ha! here at least's a friend too much a 
 
 friend 
 
 In earlier days a friend will not deceive thee. 
 Fair mirror and true ! now tell me (for tku 
 
 canst) 
 
 A tale a pretty tale and heed thou not 
 Though it be rife with woe. It answers me. 
 It speaks of sunken eyes, and wasted cheeks, 
 And Beauty long deceased remembers me 
 Of joy departed Hope, the Seraph Hope, 
 Inurned and entombed! now, in a tone 
 Low, sad, and solemn, but most audible. 
 Whispers of early grave untimely yawning 
 For ruined maid. Fair mirror and true ! thou 
 
 liest not! 
 
 Thou hast no end to gain no heart to break 
 Castiglione lied who said he loved
 
 208 POE'S POEM$ 
 
 Thou true he false! false! false! 
 
 (while she speaks, a monk enters her 
 apartment, and approaches unobserved. ) 
 Monk. Refuge thou hast, 
 Sweet daughter ! in Heaven. Think of eternal 
 
 things! 
 
 Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray ! 
 Lai. (arising hurriedly.) I cannot pray! 
 
 My soul is at war with God! 
 The frightful sounds of merriment below 
 Disturbs my senses go! I cannot pray 
 The sweet airs from the garden worry me ! 
 Thy presence grieves me go! thy priestly 
 
 raiment 
 
 Fills me with dread thy ebony crucifix 
 With horror and awe ! 
 
 Monk. Think of thy precious soul ! 
 
 Lai. Think of my early days! think of 
 
 my father 
 And mother in Heaven! think of our quiet 
 
 home, 
 
 And the rivulet that ran before the door! 
 Think of my little sisters! think of them! 
 And think of me ! think of my trusting love 
 And confidence his vows my ruin think 
 think 
 
 Of my unspeakable misery! begone! 
 
 Vet stay! yet stay! what was it thou saidst 
 
 of prayer 
 
 And patience? Didst thou not speak of faith 
 And vows before the throne? 
 Monk. I did. 
 Lai. 'Tis well
 
 POE'S POEMS. 209 
 
 There is a vow were fitting should be made 
 A solemn vow. 
 
 Monk. Daughter, this zeal is well! 
 
 Lai. Father, this zeal is anything but well ! 
 Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing? 
 A crucifix whereon to register 
 This sacred vow? (he hands her his own.) 
 Not that Oh! no! no-! no ! (shuddering.) 
 Not that! Not that I tell thee, holy man, 
 Thy raiments and thy ebony cross affright me ! 
 Stand back ! I have a crucifix myself, 
 I have a crucifix! Methinks 'twere fitting. 
 The deed the vow the symbol of the deed * 
 And the deed's register should tally, father! 
 
 (draws a cross handled dagger and raises 
 
 on high.) 
 
 Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mine 
 Is written in Heaven! 
 
 Monk. Thy words are madness, daughter, 
 And speaks a purpose unholy thy lips are 
 
 livid 
 Thine eyes are wild tempt not the wrath 
 
 divine ! 
 
 Pause ere too late ! oh be not be not rash ! 
 Swear not the oath oh swear it not ! 
 
 Lai. 'Tis sworn! 
 
 III. 
 An apartment in a palace. Politian and Baldazzar. 
 
 Baldazzar. Arouse thee now, Politian! 
 Thou must not nay indeed, indeed, thoti 
 shalt not
 
 210 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Give way unto these humors. Be thyself! 
 Shake off the idle fancies that beset thee, 
 And live for now thou diest ! 
 
 Politian. Not so, Baldazzar! 
 Surely I live. 
 
 Bal. Politian, it doth grieve me 
 To see thee thus. 
 
 Pol. Baldazzar, it doth grieve me 
 To give thee cause for grief, my honored 
 
 friend. 
 Command me, sir! what wouldst thou have 
 
 me do? 
 
 At thy behest I will shake off that nature 
 Which from my forefathers I did inherit, 
 Which with my mother's milk I did imbibe, 
 And be no more Politian, but some other. 
 Command me, sir! 
 
 Bal. To the field then to the field- 
 To the senate or the field 
 
 Pol. Alas! alas! 
 
 There is an imp would follow me even there! 
 There is an imp hath followed me even there ! 
 There is what voice was that? 
 
 Bal. I heard it not. 
 I heard not any voice except thine own, 
 And the echo of thine own. 
 
 Pol. Then I but dreamed. 
 
 Bal. Give not thy soul to dreams: the 
 
 camp the court 
 
 Befit thee Fame awaits thee Glory calls 
 And her the trumpet-tongued thou wilt not 
 
 hear 
 
 In hearkening to imaginary sounds 
 And phantom voices.
 
 'The veriest coward. O pity me! "Page 202. 
 
 Poe's Poems.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 2H 
 
 Pol. It is a phantom voice ! 
 Didst thou not hear it then? 
 
 Bal. I heard it not. 
 
 Pol. Thou heardst it not! Baldazzar 
 
 speak no more 
 
 To me, Politian, of thy camps and courts 
 Oh! I am sick, sick, sick, even unto death, 
 Of the hollow and high-sounding vanities 
 Of the populous Earth! Bear with me yet 
 
 awhile! 
 
 We have been boys together school-fellows 
 And now are friends yet shall not be so long 
 For in the eternal city thou shalt do me 
 A kind and gentle office, and a Power 
 A Power august, benignant and supreme 
 Shall then absolve thee of all farther duties 
 Unto thy friend. 
 
 Bal. Thou speakest a fearful riddle 
 I will not understand.. 
 
 Pol. Yet now as Fate 
 
 Approaches, and the hours are breathing low, 
 The sands of Time are changed to golden 
 
 grains, 
 
 And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! alas! 
 I cannot die, having within my heart 
 So keen a relish for the beautiful 
 As hath been kindled within it. Methinks 
 
 the air 
 
 Is calmer now than it was wont to be 
 Rich melodies are floating in the winds 
 A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth 
 And with a holier luster the quiet moon 
 Sitteth in Heaven. Hist! hist! thou canst 
 not say
 
 21* POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Thou hearest not now, Baldazzar? 
 Bal. Indeed I hear not. 
 Pol. Not hear it! listen! now listen! 
 
 the faintest sound 
 
 And yet the sweetest that ear ever heard ! 
 A lady's voice! and sorrow in the tone! 
 Baldazzar, it oppresses me like a spell! 
 Again ! again ! how solemnly it falls 
 Into my heart of hearts ! that eloquent voice 
 
 Surely I never heard yet it were well 
 Had I but heard it with its thrilling tones 
 In earlier days! 
 
 Bal. I myself hear it now. 
 Be still! the voice, if I mistake not greatly, 
 Proceeds from yonder lattice which you may 
 
 see 
 
 Very plainly through the window it belongs, 
 Does it not? unto this palace of the Duke. 
 The singer is undoubtedly beneath 
 The roof of his Excellency and perhaps 
 Is even that Alessandra of whom he spoke 
 As the betrothed of Castiglione, 
 His son and heir. 
 
 Pol. Be still! it comes again! 
 
 Voice "And is thy heart so strong 
 (very faintly.) As for to leave me thus 
 
 Who hath loved thee so long 
 In wealth and wo among? 
 Ana in the heart so strong 
 As for to leave me thus? 
 
 Say nay say nay!" 
 Bal, The song is English, and I oft have 
 
 heard it 
 In merry England never so plaintively
 
 POE'S POEMS. 213 
 
 Hist ! hist ! it comes again ! 
 
 Voice "Is it so strong 
 
 (more loudly.) As for to leave me thus 
 
 Who hath loved thee so long 
 In wealth and wo among? 
 And is thy heart so strong 
 As for to leave me thus? 
 
 Say nay say nay!" 
 Bal. 'Tis hushed and all is still! 
 Pol. All is not still. 
 Bal. Let us go down. 
 Pol. Go down, Baldazzar, go! 
 Bal. The hour is growing late the Duke 
 
 awaits us, 
 
 Thy presence is expected in the hall 
 Below. What ails thee, Earl Politian? 
 
 Voice "Who hath loved thee so long, 
 (distinctly.) In wealth and wo among, 
 And is thy heart so strong? 
 Say nay say nay!" 
 Bal. Let us descend! 'tis time. Politian, 
 
 give 
 
 These fancies to the wind. Remember, pray, 
 Your bearing lately savored much of rudeness 
 Unto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember! 
 Pol Remember? I do. Lead on! I do 
 remember. (going.) 
 
 Let us descend. Believe me I would give, 
 Freely would give the broad lands of my earl- 
 dom 
 
 To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice 
 "To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear 
 Once more that silent tongue. ' ' 
 Bal. Let me beg you, sir,
 
 214 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Descend with me the Duke may be offended. 
 Let us go down, I pray you. 
 
 (Voice loudly.) Say nay! say nay. 
 
 Pol. (aside.) 'Tis strange! 'tis very 
 
 strange methought the voice 
 Chimed in with my desires and bade me stay ! 
 (approaching the window.) 
 Sweet voice ! I heed thee, and will surely stay. 
 Now be this Fancy, by Heaven, or be it Fate, 
 Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, make 
 Apology unto the Duke for me; 
 I go not down to-night. 
 
 Bal. Your lordship's pleasure 
 Shall be attended to. Good-night, Politian. 
 
 Pol. Good-night, my friend good-night 
 
 IV. 
 
 The gardens of a palace Moonlight. Lalage and 
 Politian. 
 
 Lalage. And dost thou speak of love 
 To me, Politian? dost thou speak of love 
 To Lalage? ah wo ah wo is me! 
 This mockery is most cruel most cruel in- 
 deed! 
 Politian. Weep not! oh, sob not thus! 
 
 thy bitter tears 
 
 Will madden me. Oh, mourn not, Lalage 
 Be comforted ! I know T know it all, 
 And still I speak of love. Look at me, bright- 
 est, 
 
 And beautiful Lalage ! turn here thine eyes ! 
 Thou askest me if I could speak of love,
 
 FOE'S POEMS. 215 
 
 Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have 
 
 seen. 
 
 Thou askest me that and thus I answer thee 
 Thus on my bended knee I answer thee. 
 
 (kneeling.) 
 Sweet Lalage, I love thee love thee love 
 
 thee ; 
 Thro' good and ill thro* weal and wo I love 
 
 thee. 
 
 Not mother, with her first-born on her knee, 
 Thrills with intenser love than I for thee. 
 Not on God's altar, in any time or clime, 
 Burned there a holier fire than burneth now 
 Within my spirit for thee. And do I love? 
 
 (arising.) 
 Everj for thy woes I love thee even for 
 
 thy woes 
 
 Thy beauty and thy woes. 
 Lai. Alas, proud Earl, 
 Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me! 
 How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens 
 Pure and reproachless, of thy princely line, 
 Could the dishonored Lalage abide? 
 Thy wife, and with a tainted memory 
 My seared and blighted name, how would it tally 
 With the ancestral honors of thy house, 
 And with thy glory? 
 
 Pol. Speak not to me of glory! 
 I hate I loathe the name; I do abhor 
 The unsatisfactory and ideal thing. 
 Art thou not Lalage and I Politian? 
 Do I not love art thou not beautiful 
 What need we more? Ha! glory ! now speak 
 not of it :
 
 216 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 By all I hold most sacred and most solemn 
 By all my wishes now my fears hereafter 
 By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven 
 There is no deed I would more glory in, 
 Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory 
 And trample it under foot. What matters it 
 What matters it, my fairest, and my best, 
 That we go down unhonored and forgotten 
 Into the dust so we descend together. 
 Descend together and then and then per- 
 chance 
 
 Lai. Why dost thou pause, Politian? 
 
 Pol. And then perchance 
 Arise together, Lalage, and roam 
 The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest, 
 And still 
 
 Lai. Why dost thou pause, Politian? 
 
 Pol. And still together together. 
 
 Lai. Now Earl of Leicester! 
 Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts 
 I feel thou lovest me truly. 
 
 Pol. Oh, Lalage! (throwing himself upon 
 
 his knee.) 
 And lovest thou me? 
 
 Lai. Hist ! hush ! within the gloom 
 Of yonder trees methought a figure past 
 A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noise- 
 less 
 
 Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and 
 noiseless. (walks across and returns.) 
 I was mistaken 'twas but a giant bough 
 Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian! 
 
 Pol. My Lalage my love! why art thou 
 moved!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 217 
 
 Why dost thou turn so pale ! Not Conscience* 
 
 self, 
 
 Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it, 
 Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the 
 
 night wind 
 
 Is chilly and these melancholy boughs 
 Throw over all things a gloom. 
 
 Lai. Politian! 
 Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou 
 
 the land 
 With which all tongues are busy a land new 
 
 found 
 
 Miraculously found by one of Genoa 
 A thousand leagues within the golden west? 
 A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sun^ 
 
 shine, 
 
 And crystal lakes, and overarching forests. 
 And mountains, around whose towering sum- 
 mits the winds 
 Of Heaven untrammeled flow which air to 
 
 breathe 
 
 Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom here- 
 after 
 In days that art to come? 
 
 Pol. O, wilt thou wilt thou 
 Fly to that Paradise my Lalage, wilt thou 
 Fly thither with me? There Care shall be for- 
 gotten, 
 
 And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all 
 And lite shall then be mine, for I will live 
 For thee, and in thine eyes and thou shalt be 
 No more a mourner but the radiant Joys 
 Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope 
 Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee
 
 POE'S POEMS. 218 
 
 And worship thee, and call thee my beloved, 
 My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife, 
 My all ; oh, wilt thou wilt thou, Lalage, 
 Fly thither with me? 
 
 Lai. A deed is to be done 
 Castiglione lives! 
 
 Pol. And he shall die ! (exit.) 
 
 Lai. (after a pause.) And he shall 
 
 die ! alas 
 
 Castiglione die! Who spoke the words? 
 Where am I? what was it he said? Politian! 
 Thou art not gone thou art not gone, Poli- 
 tian. 
 
 I feel thou art not gone yet dare not look, 
 Lest I behold thee not ; thou couldst not go 
 With those words upon thy lips O, speak 
 
 to me ! 
 And let me hear thy voice one word one 
 
 word, 
 
 To say thou art not gone, one little sentence, 
 To say how thou dost scorn how thou dost 
 
 hate 
 
 My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou art not 
 gone 
 
 speak to me ! I knew thou wouldst not go ! 
 
 1 knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst 
 
 not go. 
 
 Villain, thou art not gone thou mockest me ! 
 And thus I clutch thee thus ! He is gone, 
 
 gone, he is gone- 
 Gone gone. Where am I? 'tis well 'tis 
 
 very well! 
 
 So that the blade be keen the blow be sure, 
 'Tis well, 'tis very well alas! alas!
 
 219 PO'S POEMS. 
 
 i 
 
 V. 
 
 The suburbs. Politian alone. 
 
 Politian. This weakness grows upon me. 
 
 I am faint 
 
 And much 1 fear me ill it will not do 
 To die ere I have lived ! Stay stay thy hand, 
 O Azrael, yet awhile ! Prince of the Powers 
 Of Darkness and the Tomb, O pity me ! 
 O pity me ! let me not perish now, 
 In the budding of my Paradisal Hope! 
 Give me to live yet yet a little while : 
 Tis I who pray for life I who so late 
 Demanded but to die ! what sayeth the Count? 
 
 Enter Baldazzar. 
 
 Baldazzar. That knowing no cause of quarrel 
 
 or of feud 
 
 Between the earl Politian and himself, 
 He doth decline your cartel. 
 Pol. What didst thou say? 
 What answer was it you brought me, good 
 
 Baldazzar? 
 With what excessive fragrance the zephyr 
 
 comes 
 
 Laden from yonder bowers! a fairer day, 
 Or one more worthy Italy, methinks 
 No mortal eyes have seen ! what said the 
 
 Count? 
 
 Bal. That he, Castiglione, not being aware 
 Of any feud existing, or any cause 
 Of quarrel between your lordship and himself 
 Cannot accept the challenge.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 220 
 
 Pol. It is most true 
 All this is very true. When saw you, sir, 
 When saw you now, Baldazzar, in the frigid 
 Ungenial Britain which we left so lately, 
 A heaven so calm as this so utterly free 
 From the evil taint of clouds? and he did say? 
 
 Bal. No more, my lord, than 1 have told 
 
 you, sir: 
 
 The Count Castiglione will not fight, 
 Having no cause for quarrel. 
 
 Pol. Now this is true 
 
 All very true. Thou art my friend, Baldazzar, 
 And I have not forgotten it thou'lt do me 
 A piece of service; wilt thou go back and say 
 Unto this man, that I, the Earl of Leicester, 
 Hold him a villain? thus much, I prythee, say 
 Unto the Count it is exceeding just 
 He should have cause for quarrel. 
 
 Bal. My lord! my friend! 
 
 Pol. (aside.) 'Tis he he comes himself! 
 
 (aloud.) Thou reasonest well. 
 I know what thou wouldst say not send the 
 
 message 
 
 Well! I will think of it I will not send it. 
 Now prithee, leave me hither doth come a 
 
 person 
 
 With whom affairs of a most private nature 
 I would adjust. 
 
 Bal. I go to-morrow we meet, 
 Do we not? at the Vatican? 
 
 Pol. At the Vatican. (Bal. exit.) 
 
 Enter Castiglione. 
 Cas. The Earl of Leicester here!
 
 221 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Pol. I am the Earl of Leicester, and thou 
 
 seest, 
 
 Dost thou not? that I am here. 
 Cas. My lord, some strange, 
 Some singular mistake misunderstanding 
 Hath without doubt arisen, thou hast beon 
 
 urged 
 
 Thereby, in heat of anger, to address 
 Some words most unaccountable, in writing, 
 To me, Castiglione; the bearer being 
 Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. I am aware 
 Of nothing which might warrant thee in this 
 
 thing, 
 Having given thee no offense. Ha! am I 
 
 right? 
 
 'Twas a mistake? undoubtedly we all 
 Do err at times. 
 
 Pol. Draw, villain, and prate no more ! 
 Cas. Ha! draw? and villain? have at thee 
 
 then at once, 
 Proud Earl! (draws.) 
 
 Pol. (drawing.) Thus to the expiatory tomb, 
 Untimely sepulcher, I do devote thee 
 In the name of Lalage ! 
 Cas. (letting fall his sword and recoiling to 
 
 the extremity of the stage.) 
 Of Lalage! 
 
 Hold off thy sacred hand avaunt I say! 
 Avaunt I will not fight thee indeed I dare 
 
 not 
 Pol. Thou wilt not fight with me didst say, 
 
 Sir Count? 
 
 Shall I be baffled thus? now this is well. 
 Didst say thou darest not? Ha!
 
 POE'S POEMS. 222 
 
 Cas. I dare not dare not 
 Hold off thy hand with that beloved name 
 So fresh upon thy lips I will not fight thee 
 I cannot dare not. 
 
 Pol. Now by my halidom 
 I do believe thee! coward, 1 do believe thee! 
 Cas. Ha! coward! this may not be! 
 
 (clutches his sword and staggers towards 
 Politian, but his purpose is changed 
 before reaching him, and he falls upon his 
 knee at the feet of the Earl.) 
 Alas! my lord, It is it is most true. In 
 
 such a cause 
 1 am the veriest coward. O pity me! 
 
 Pol. (greatly softened.) Alas! I do indeed 
 I pity thee. 
 
 Cas. And Lalage 
 
 Pol. Scoundrel! arise, and die! 
 
 Cas. It needeth not be thus thus O let 
 
 me die 
 
 Thus on my bended knee. It were most fitting 
 That in this deep humiliation I perish. 
 For in the fight I will not raise a hand 
 Against thee, Earl of Leicester. Strike thou 
 
 home (baring his bosom.) 
 
 Here is no let nor hindrance to thy weapon 
 Strike home. I will not fight thee. 
 
 Pol. Now's death and hell! 
 Am I not am I not sorely grievously 
 
 tempted 
 
 To take thee at thy word? But mark me, sir: 
 Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare 
 For public insult in the streets before 
 The eyes of the citizens. I'll follow thee
 
 223 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Like an avenging spirit I'll follow thee, 
 Even unto death. Before those whom thou 
 
 lovest 
 Before all Rome, I'll taunt thee, villain, I'll 
 
 taunt thee, 
 Dost hear? with cowardice thou wilt not fight 
 
 me? 
 Thouliest! thoushalt! (exit.) 
 
 Cas. Now this indeed is just! 
 Most righteous, and most just, avenging 
 
 Heaven !
 
 POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH.* 
 
 SONNET TO SCIENCE. 
 
 Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! 
 
 Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. 
 Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, 
 
 Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? 
 How should he love thee? or how deem thee 
 wise, 
 
 Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering 
 To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies, 
 
 Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? 
 Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car 
 
 And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 
 To seek a shelter in some happier star 
 
 Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, 
 The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 
 
 The summer dream beneath the tamarind 
 tree? 
 
 *Private reasons some of which have reference to 
 the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tenny- 
 son's first poems have induced me, after some hesita- 
 tion, to republish these, the crude compositions of my 
 earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim without 
 alteration from the original edition the date of which 
 is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged. E. A. P. 
 
 225 
 18 Foe's Poems.
 
 226 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 AL AARAAR* 
 PART I. 
 
 O ! nothing earthly save the ray 
 
 (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye 
 
 As in those gardens where the day 
 
 Springs from the gems of Circassy; 
 
 Oh ! nothing earthly save the thrill 
 
 Of melody in woodland rill 
 
 Or (music of the passion-hearted) 
 
 Joy's voice so peacefully departed, 
 
 That, like the murmur in the shell, 
 
 Its echo dwelleth and will dwell 
 
 O, nothing of the dross of ours 
 
 Yet all the beauty all the flowers 
 
 That list our .Love, and deck our bowers 
 
 Adorn yon world afar, afar 
 
 The wandering star. 
 
 'Twas a sweet time for Nesace for there 
 Her world lay lolling on the golden air, 
 Near four bright suns a temporary rest 
 An oasis in desert of the blest. 
 Away away 'mid seas of rays that roll 
 Empyrean splendor o'er th* unchained 
 The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense) 
 Can struggle to its destin'd eminence 
 To distant spheres, from time to time, she 
 rode, 
 
 *A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which ap- 
 peared suddenly in the heavens attained, in a few 
 days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter then as 
 suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.
 
 POE'S POEMS. 227 
 
 And late to ours, the favor'd one of God 
 But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm, 
 She throws aside the scepter leaves the helm, 
 And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns, 
 Leaves in quadruple light her angel limbs. 
 Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, 
 
 Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into 
 
 birth, 
 
 (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star, 
 Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar, 
 It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt), 
 She look'd into Infinity and knelt. 
 Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled 
 Fit emblems of the model of her world 
 Seen but in beauty not impeding sight 
 Of other beauty glittering thro' the light 
 A wreath that twined each starry form around, 
 And all the opal'd air in color bound. 
 
 All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed 
 Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head 
 On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang 
 So eagerly around about to hang 
 Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride 
 Of her * who lov'd a mortal and so died. 
 The Sephalica, budding with young bees, 
 Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees: 
 And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam d 
 Inmate of the highest stars, where erst it 
 
 sham'd 
 
 All other loveliness: its honeyed dew 
 (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) 
 Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, 
 
 *Sappho.
 
 228 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 And fell on gardens of the tmforgivea 
 In Trebizond and on a sunny flower 
 So like its own above, that, to this hour, 
 It still remaineth, torturing the bee 
 With madness, and unwonted reverie : 
 In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf 
 And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief 
 Disconsolate linger grief that hangs her head, 
 Repenting follies that full long have fled, 
 Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, 
 Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair: 
 Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light 
 She fears to perfume, perfuming the night : 
 And Clytia pondering between many a sun, 
 While pettish tears adown her petals run: 
 And that aspiring flower that sprang on 
 
 Earth 
 
 And died, ere scarce exalted into birth, 
 Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing 
 Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king: 
 And Valisnerian lotus thither flown 
 From struggling with the waters of the Rhone: 
 And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante! 
 Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante! 
 And the Nelumbo bud that floats forever 
 With Indian Cupid down the holy river 
 Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given 
 To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to 
 Heaven : 
 
 "Spirit! that dwellest where, 
 
 In the deep sky, 
 
 The terrible and fair, 
 
 In beauty vie! 
 
 Beyond the line of blue
 
 POE'S POEMS. 229 
 
 The boundary of the star 
 Which turneth at the view 
 Of thy barrier and thy bar 
 Of the barrier overgone 
 By the comets who were cast 
 From their pride, and from their throne 
 To be drudges till the last- 
 To be carriers of fire 
 (The red fire of their heart) 
 With speed that may not tire 
 And with pain that shall not part 
 Who livest that we know 
 In Eternity we feel 
 But the shadow of whose brow 
 What spirit shall reveal 
 Thro' the beings whom thy Nesace, 
 Thy messenger hath known 
 Have dream 'd for thy Infinity 
 A model of their own 
 Thy will is done, O God! 
 The star hath ridden high 
 Thro' many a tempest, but she rode 
 Beneath thy burning eye ; 
 And here, in thought, to thee 
 In thought that can alone 
 Ascend thy empire and so be 
 A partner of thy throne 
 By winged Fantasy, 
 My embassy is given, 
 Till secrecy shall knowledge be 
 In the environs of Heaven." 
 
 She ceas'd and buried then her burning cheek 
 Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
 
 230 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 A shelter from the fervor of His eye ; 
 
 For the stars trembled at the Deity. 
 
 She stirr'd not breath 'd not for a voice was 
 
 there 
 
 How solemnly pervading the calm air! 
 A sound of silence on the startled ear 
 Which dreamy poets name "the music of the 
 
 sphere," 
 
 Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call 
 4 * Silence" which is the merest word of all. 
 All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things 
 Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings 
 But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high 
 The eternal voice of God is passing by, 
 And the red winds are withering in the sky! 
 
 *'What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles 
 
 run, 
 
 Link'd to a little system, and one sun 
 Where all my love is folly and the crowd 
 Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud, 
 The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean 
 
 wrath 
 
 (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?) 
 What tho' in worlds which own a single sun 
 The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run, 
 Yet thine is my resplendency, so given 
 To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven. > 
 Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly, 
 With all thy train, athwart the moony sky - 
 Apart like fire-flies in Sicilian night, 
 And wing to other worlds another light ! 
 Divulge the secrets of thy embassy 
 To the proud orbs that twinkle and so be
 
 POE'S POEMS. 231 
 
 To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban 
 Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!" 
 Up rose the maiden in the yellow night, 
 The single-mooned eve! -on Earth we plight 
 Our faith to one love and one moon adore 
 The birth-place of young Beauty had no more. 
 As sprang that yellow star from dawny hours 
 Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, 
 And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain 
 Her way but left not yet her Therassean 
 reign. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 High on a mountain of enamel'd head 
 Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed 
 Of giant pasturage lying at his ease, 
 Raising his heavy eyelids, starts and sees 
 With many a mutter 'd "hope to be forgiven" 
 What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven 
 Of rosy head, that towering far away 
 Into the sunlit either, caught the ray 
 Of sunken suns at eve at noon of night, 
 While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger 
 
 light 
 
 Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile 
 Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air, 
 Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile 
 Far down upon the wave that sparkled there, 
 And nursled the young mountain in its lair, 
 Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall 
 Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall 
 Of their own dissolution, while they die
 
 232 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Adorning then the dwellings of the sky. 
 
 A dome, by linked light from Heaven let 
 
 down, 
 
 Sat gently on these columns as a crown 
 A window of one circular diamond, there, 
 Look'd out above into the purple air, 
 And rays from God shot down that meteor 
 
 chain 
 
 And hallow'd all the beauty twice again, 
 Save when, between th' Empyrean and that 
 
 ring, 
 
 Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing. 
 But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen 
 The dimness of this world; that grayish green 
 That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave 
 Lurk'd in each cornice, round each archi- 
 trave 
 
 And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout 
 That from his marble dwelling peered out, 
 Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche 
 Achaian statues in a world so rich? 
 Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis, 
 From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss 
 Of beautiful Gomorrah ! O, the wave 
 Is now upon thee but too late to save! 
 
 Sound loves to revel in a summer night ; 
 Witness the murmur of the gray twilight 
 That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco, 
 Of many a wild star gazer long ago 
 That stealeth ever on the ear of him 
 Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim, 
 And sees the darkness coming as a cloth
 
 FOE'S POEMS. 233 
 
 Is not its form its voice most palpable and 
 loud? 
 
 But what is this? it cometh and it brings 
 A music with it 'tis the rush of wings 
 A pause and then a sweeping, falling strain 
 And Nesace is in her halls again. 
 From the wild energy of wanton haste 
 
 Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart; 
 And zone that clung around her gentle waist 
 
 Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. 
 Within the center of that hall to breathe 
 She paus'd and panted, Zanthe! all beneath, 
 The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair 
 And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there! 
 
 Young flowers were whispering in melody 
 To happy flowers that night and tree to tree ; 
 Fountains were gushing music as they fell 
 In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell ; 
 Yet silence came upon material things 
 Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel 
 
 wings 
 
 And sound alone that from the spirit sprang 
 Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang: 
 
 " 'Neath blue-bell or streamer 
 
 Or tufted wild spray 
 That keeps, from the dreamer, 
 
 The moonbeam away 
 Bright beings! that ponder, 
 
 With half closing-eyes, 
 On the stars which your wonder 
 
 Hath drawn from the skies, 
 Till they g.ance thro' the shade, and 
 
 Come down to your brow 
 
 6 Poe's Poems.
 
 234 FOE'S POEMS 
 
 Like eyes of the maiden 
 
 Who calls on you now. 
 Arise ! from your dreaming 
 
 In violet bowers. 
 To duty beseeming 
 
 These star-litten hours 
 
 "And shake from your tresses 
 
 Encumber 'd with dew 
 The breath of those kisses 
 
 That cumber them too 
 (O! how, without you, Love! 
 
 Could angels be blest?) 
 Those kisses of true love 
 
 That lull 'dye to rest! 
 Up! shake from your wing 
 
 Each hindering thing: 
 The dew of the night 
 
 It would weigh down your flight; 
 And true love caresses 
 
 Oh! leave them apart: 
 They are light on the tresses, 
 
 But lead on the heart. 
 
 "Ligeia! Ligeia! 
 
 My beautiful one! 
 Whose harshest idea 
 
 Will to melody run, 
 O! is it thy will 
 
 On the breezes to toss? 
 Or, capriciously still, 
 
 Like the lone Albatross, 
 Incumbent on night 
 
 (As she on the air)
 
 POE'S POEMS. 235 
 
 To keep watch with delight 
 On the harmony there? 
 
 "Ligeia! wherever 
 
 Thy image may be, ] 
 
 No magic shall sever 
 
 Thy music from thee. 
 Thou hast bound many eyes 
 
 In a dreamy sleep 
 But the strains still arise 
 
 Which thy vigilance keep 
 The sound of the rain 
 
 Which leaps down to the flower, 
 And dances again 
 
 In the rhythm of the shower 
 The murmur that springs 
 
 From the growing of grass 
 Are the music of things 
 
 But are model' d, alas! 
 Away, then, my dearest, 
 
 O! hie thee away 
 To springs that lie clearest 
 
 Beneath the moon-ray 
 To lone lake that smiles, 
 
 In its dream of deep rest, 
 At the many star-isles 
 
 That enjeweled its breast 
 Where the wild flowers, creeping 
 
 Have mingled their shade, 
 On its margin is sleeping 
 
 Full many a maid 
 Sorue have left the cool glade, and 
 
 Have slept with the bee 
 Arouse them, my maiden,
 
 236 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 On moorland and lea 
 Go! breathe on their slumber, 
 
 All softly in ear, 
 The musical number 
 
 They slumber 'd to hear 
 For what can awaken 
 
 An angel so soon 
 Whose sleep hath been taken 
 
 Beneath the cold moon 
 As the spell which no slumber 
 
 Of witchery may test, 
 The rhythmical number 
 
 Which lull'd him to rest?" 
 
 Spirits in wings, and angels to the view, 
 
 A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro', 
 
 Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy 
 
 flight, 
 Seraphs in all but " Knowledge," the keen 
 
 light 
 
 That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar, 
 O Death! from eye of God upon that star: 
 Sweet was that error sweeter still that 
 
 death 
 
 Sweet was that error e'en with us the breath 
 Of Science dims the mirror of our joy 
 To them 'twere the Simoon, and would 
 
 destroy- 
 
 For what (to them) availeth it to know 
 That Truth is Falsehood or that Bliss is Woe? 
 Sweet was their death with them to die was 
 
 rife 
 
 With the last ecstasy of satiate life 
 Beyond that death no immortality
 
 POE'S POEMS. 237 
 
 But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"- 
 And there oh! may my weary spirit dwell 
 Apart from Heaven's Eternity and yet how 
 
 far from Hell! 
 
 What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, 
 Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn? 
 But two: they fell for Heaven no grace 
 
 imparts 
 
 To those who hear not for their beating hearts. 
 A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover 
 O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies 
 
 over) 
 
 Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known? 
 Unguided Love hath fallen 'mid "tears of 
 
 perfect moan." 
 
 He was a goodly spirit he who fell ; 
 A wanderer by mossy-mantled well 
 A gazer on the lights that shine above 
 A dreamer in the moonbeam, by his love: 
 What wonder? for each star is eye-like there, 
 And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair; 
 And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy 
 To his love-haunted heart and melancholy. 
 The night had found (to him a night of woe) 
 Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo 
 Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, 
 And scowls on starry worlds that down be- 
 neath it lie. 
 
 Here sate he with his love his dark eye bent 
 With eagle gaze along the firmament: 
 Now turned it upon her but ever then 
 It trembled to the orb of Earth again.
 
 238 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 " Ian the, dearest, see! how dim that ray! 
 How lovely 'tis to look so far away! 
 She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve 
 I left her gorgeous halls nor mourned to 
 
 leave. 
 
 That eve that eve i should remember well 
 The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos, with a spell 
 On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall 
 Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall 
 And on my eyelids O the heavy light! 
 How drowsily it weighed them into night! 
 On flowers, before, and mist, and love they 
 
 ran 
 
 With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: 
 But O that light! I slumber 'd Death, the 
 
 while, 
 
 Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle 
 So softly that no single silken hair 
 Awoke that slept or knew that he was there. 
 
 "The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon 
 Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon. 
 More beauty clung around her column'd wall 
 Than ev'n thy glowing bosoms beats withal, 
 And when old Time my wing did disenthral 
 Thence sprang I as the eagle from his tower, 
 And years I left behind me in an hour. 
 What time upon her airy bounds I hung, 
 One half the garden of her globe was flung. 
 Unrolling as a chart unto my view 
 Tenantless cities of the desert too! 
 lanthe, beauty crowded on me then, 
 And half I wished to be again of men." 
 14 My Angelo! and why of them to be?
 
 POE'S POEMS. 239 
 
 A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee, 
 And greener fields than in yon world above, 
 And woman's loveliness and passionate love. " 
 
 44 But, list, Ian the! when the air so soft 
 Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft, 
 Perhaps my brain grew dizzy but the world 
 I left so late was into chaos hurl'd 
 Sprang from her station, on the winds apart, 
 And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. 
 Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to 
 
 soar 
 
 And fell not so swiftly as I rose before, 
 But with a downward, tremulous motion thro* 
 Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto! 
 Nor long the measure of my falling hours, 
 For nearest of all stars was thine to ours 
 Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth 
 A red Dsedalion on the timid Earth. 
 
 "We came and to thy Earth but not to us 
 Be given our lady's bidding to discuss: 
 We came, my love ; around, above, below, 
 Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, 
 Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod 
 She grants to us, as granted by her God- 
 But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurl'd 
 Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world! 
 Dim was its little disk and angel eyes 
 Alone could see the phantom in the skies. 
 When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be 
 Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea 
 But when its glory swell'd upon the sky, 
 As glowing beauty's bust beneath man's eye.
 
 240 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 We paused before the heritage of men, 
 And thy star trembled as doth Beauty then!" 
 Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away 
 The night that waned and waned and brought 
 
 no day, 
 
 They fell : for Heaven to them no hope im- 
 parts 
 Who hear not for the beating of their hearts. 
 
 I TO THE RIVER . 
 
 Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow 
 Of crystal, wandering water, 
 
 Thou art an emblem of the glow 
 
 Of beauty the unhidden heart 
 The playful maziness of art 
 
 In old Alberto's daughter; 
 
 But when within thy wave she looks 
 
 Which glistens then, and trembles 
 Why, then, the prettiest of books 
 
 Her worshiper resembles; 
 For in his heart, as in thy stream, 
 
 Her image deeply lies 
 His heart which trembles at the beam 
 
 Of her soul-searching eyes. 
 
 TAMERLANE. 
 
 Kind solace in a dying hour! 
 
 Such, father, is not (now) my theme - 
 
 I will not madly deem that power 
 
 Of Earth may shrive me of the sin 
 Unearthly pride hath revel'd in
 
 POE'S POEMS. 241 
 
 I have no time to dote or dream: 
 You call it hope that fire of fire! 
 It is but agony of desire : 
 If I can hope Oh, God! I can 
 
 Its fount is holier more divine 
 I would not call thee fool, old man, 
 
 But such is not a gift of thine. 
 
 Know thou the secret of a spirit 
 
 Bow'd from its wild pride into shame. 
 
 O yearning heart! I did inherit 
 
 Thy withering portion with the fame, 
 
 The searing glory which hath shone 
 
 Amid the jewels of my throne, 
 
 Halo of Hell! and with a pain 
 
 Not Hell shall make me fear again 
 
 craving heart, for the lost flowers 
 And sunshine of my summer hours! 
 The undying voice of that dead time, 
 With its interminable chime, 
 Rings, in the spirit of a spell, 
 
 Upon thy emptiness a knell. 
 
 1 have not* always been as now : 
 The fever'd diadem on my brow 
 
 I claim'd and won usurpingly 
 Hath not the same fierce heirdom given 
 Rome to Caesar this to me? 
 
 The heritage of a kingly mind, 
 And a proud spirit which hath striven 
 Triumphantly with human kind. 
 
 On mountain soil I first drew life: 
 The mists of the Taglay have shed 
 Nightly the dews upon my head,
 
 242 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 And, I believe, the winged strife 
 And tumult of the headlong air 
 Have nestled in my very hair. 
 
 So late from Heaven that dew it fell 
 
 ('Mid dreams of an unholy night) 
 Upon me with the touch of Hell, 
 
 While the red flashing of the light 
 From clouds that hung like banners, o'er, 
 
 Appeared to my half closing eye 
 
 The pageantry of monarchy, 
 And the deep trumpet thunder's roar 
 Came hurriedly upon me, telling 
 
 Of human battle, where my voice, 
 My own voice, silly child! was swelling 
 
 (O ! how my spirit would rejoice, 
 And leap within me at the cry) 
 The battle-cry of Victory! 
 
 The rain came down upon my head 
 Unshelter'd and the heavy wind 
 Rendered me mad and deaf and blind. 
 
 It was but man, I thought, who shed 
 Laurels upon me : and tho rush 
 
 The torrent of the chilly air 
 
 Gurgled within my ear the crush 
 Of empires with the captive's prayer 
 
 The hum of suitors and the tone 
 
 Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne. 
 
 My passions, from that hapless hour, 
 
 Usurped a tyranny which men 
 Have deem'd, since I have reached to power, 
 My innate nature be it so :
 
 POE'S POEMS. 243 
 
 But, father, there liv'd one who, then, 
 Then in my boyhood when their fire 
 
 Burn'd with a still intenser glow 
 (For passion must, with youth, expire) 
 E'en then who knew this iron heart 
 In woman's weakness had a part. 
 
 I have no words alas to tell 
 The loveliness of loving well ! 
 Nor would I now attempt to trace 
 The more than beauty of a face 
 Whose lineaments, upon my mind, 
 
 Are shadows on th' unstable wind: 
 
 Thus I remember having dwelt 
 
 Some page of early lore upon, 
 With loitering eye, till I have felt 
 The letters with their meaning melt 
 
 To fantasies with none. 
 
 O, she was worthy of all love ! 
 
 Love as in infancy was mine 
 'Twas such as angel minds above 
 
 Might envy; her young heart the shrine 
 On which my every hope and thought 
 
 Were incense then a goodly gift. 
 
 For they were childish and upright 
 Pure as her young example taught: 
 
 Why did I leave it, and, adrift, 
 Trust to the fire within, for light? 
 
 We grew an age and love together 
 Roaming the forest, and the wild; 
 
 My breast her shield in wintry weather- 
 And, when the friendly sunshine smil'd
 
 244 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 And she would mark the opening skies, 
 I saw no Heaven but in her eyes. 
 Young Love's first lesson is the heart: 
 
 For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles, 
 When, from our little cares apart, 
 
 And laughing at her girlish wiles, 
 I'd throw me on her throbbing breast, 
 
 And pour my spirit out in tears 
 There was no need to speak the rest 
 
 No need to quiet any fears 
 Of her who asked no reason why, 
 But turned on me her quiet eye! 
 
 Yet more than worthy of the love 
 
 My spirit struggled with, and strove, 
 
 When, on the mountain peak alone, 
 
 Ambition lent it a new tone 
 
 I had no being but in thee : 
 
 , The world, and all it did contain 
 
 In the earth the air the sea 
 
 Its joy its little lot of pain 
 That was new pleasure the ideal, 
 
 Dim, vanities of dreams by night 
 And dimmer nothings which were real 
 
 (Shadows and a more shadowy light!) 
 Parted upon their misty wings, 
 And, so, confusedly, became 
 Thine image and a name a name! 
 Two separate yet most intimate things. 
 
 I was ambitious have you known 
 
 The passion, father? You have not: 
 A cottager, I mark'd a throne 
 Of half the world as all my own,
 
 POE'S POEMS. 245 
 
 And murmur'd at suoh lowly lot 
 But, just like any other dream, 
 
 Upon the vapor of the dew 
 My own had past, did not the beam 
 
 Of beauty which did while it thro* 
 The minute the hour the day oppress 
 My mind with double loveliness 
 We walk'd together on the crown 
 Of a high mountain which look'd down 
 Afar from its proud natural towers 
 Of rock and forest, on the hills 
 The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers 
 And shouting with a thousand rills. 
 
 I spoke to her of power and pride, 
 
 But mystically in such guise 
 That she might deem it nought beside 
 
 The moment's converse; in her eyes 
 I read, perhaps too carelessly 
 
 A mingled feeling with my own 
 The flush on her bright cheek, to me 
 
 Seem'd to become a queenly throne 
 Too well that I should let it be 
 
 Light in the wilderness alone. 
 
 I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then 
 
 And donn'd a visionary crown 
 Yet it was not that Fantasy 
 
 Had thrown her mantle over me 
 But that, among the rabble men, 
 
 Lion ambition is chain'd down 
 And crouches to a keeper's hand 
 
 Not so in deserts where the grand
 
 246 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 The wild the terrible conspire 
 With their own breath to fan his fire. 
 
 Look 'round thee now on Samarcand ! 
 
 Is she not queen of Earth? her pride 
 Above all cities? in her hand 
 
 Their destinies? in all beside 
 Of glory which the world hath known 
 
 Stands she not nobly and alone? 
 Falling her veriest stepping-stone 
 
 Shall form the pedestal of a throne 
 And who her sovereign? Timour he 
 Whom the astonished people saw 
 Striding o'er empires haughtily 
 
 A diadem'd outlaw! 
 
 O, human love! thou spirit given, 
 On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! 
 Which fall'st into the soul like rain 
 Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain, 
 And, falling in thy power to bless, 
 But leav'st the heart a wilderness! 
 Idea! which bindest life around 
 With music of so strange a sound 
 And beauty of so wild a birth 
 Farewell! for I have won the Earth. 
 
 When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see 
 
 No cliff beyond him in the sky, 
 His pinions were bent droopingly 
 
 And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye. 
 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part 
 There comes a sullenness of heart 
 To him who still would look upon
 
 POE'S POEMS. 247 
 
 The glory of the summer sun. 
 
 That soul will hate the ev'ning mist 
 
 So often lovely, and will list 
 
 To the sound of the coming darkness (known 
 
 To those whose spirits hearken) as one 
 Who, in a dream of night, would fly 
 But cannot from a danger nigh. 
 
 What tho' the moon the white moon 
 Shed all the splendor of her noon, 
 Her smile is chilly and her beam, 
 In that time of dreariness, will seem 
 (So like you gather in your breath) 
 A portrait taken after death. 
 And boyhood is a summer sun 
 Whose waning is the dreariest one 
 For all we live to know is known 
 And all we seek to keep hath flown 
 Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall 
 With the noon-day beauty which is all. 
 
 I reach 'd my home my home no more 
 For all had flown who made it so. 
 I pass'd from out its mossy door, 
 And, tho' my tread was soft and low, 
 A voice came from the threshold stone 
 Of one whom I had earlier known 
 
 O, I defy thee, Hell, to show 
 On beds of fire that burn below, 
 
 An humbler heart a deeper woe. 
 
 Father, I firmly do believe 
 
 I know for Death who comes for me 
 From regions of the blest afar,
 
 248 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Where there is nothing to deceive, 
 Hath left his iron gate ajar, 
 
 And rays of truth you cannot see 
 
 Are flashing thro' Eternity 
 I do believe that Eblis hath 
 A snare in every human path- 
 Else how, when in the holy grove 
 I wandered, of the idol, Love, 
 Who daily scents his snowy wings 
 With incense of burnt offerings 
 From the most unpolluted things, 
 Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven 
 Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven 
 No mote may shun no tiniest fly 
 The light'ning of his eagle eye 
 How was it that Ambition crept, 
 
 Unseen, amid the revels there, 
 Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt 
 
 In the tangles of Love's very hair? 
 
 TO . 
 
 The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see 
 
 The wantonest singing birds, 
 Are lips and all thy melody 
 
 Of lip-begotten words 
 
 Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined 
 
 Then desolately fall, 
 God ! on my funereal mind 
 
 Like starlight on a pall 
 
 Thy heart thy heart! I wake and sigh, 
 And sleep to dream till day
 
 POE'S POEMS. 249 
 
 Of the truth that gold can never buy 
 Of the baubles that it may. 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 In visions of the dark night 
 
 I have dreamed of joy departed 
 
 But a waking dream of. life and light 
 Hath left me broken-hearted. 
 
 Ah ! what is not a dream by day 
 
 To him whose eyes are cast 
 On things around him with a ray 
 
 Turned back upon the past? 
 
 That holy dream that holy dream, 
 While all the world were chiding, 
 
 Hath cheered me as a lovely beam 
 A lonely spirit guiding. 
 
 What though that light, thro* storm and night, 
 
 So trembled from afar 
 What could there be more purely bright 
 
 In Truth's day-star? 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 Romance, who loves to nod and sing, 
 With drowsy head and folded wing, 
 Among the green leaves as they shake 
 Far down within some shadowy lake, 
 To me a painted paroquet 
 Hath been a most familiar bird 
 Taught me my alphabet to say
 
 250 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 To lisp my very earliest word, 
 While to the wild wood I did lie 
 A child with a most knowing eye. 
 
 Of late, eternal Condor years 
 So shake the very Heaven on high 
 With tumult as they thunder by, 
 I have no time for idle cares 
 Through gazing on the unquiet sky. 
 And when an hour with calmer wings 
 Its down upon my spirit flings 
 That little time with lyre and rhyme 
 To while away forbidden things! 
 My heart would feel to be a crime 
 Unless it trembled with the strings. 
 
 FAIRYLAND. 
 
 Dim vales and shadowy floods 
 And cloudy-looking woods, 
 Whose forms we can't discover 
 For the tears that drip all over ; 
 Huge moons there wax and wane 
 Again again again 
 Every moment of the night 
 Forever changing places, 
 And they put out the star-light 
 With the breath from their pale faces. 
 About twelve by the moon -dial 
 One more filmy than the rest 
 (A kind which, upon trial, 
 They have found to be the best) 
 Comes down still down and down 
 With its center on the crown
 
 POE'S POEMS. 26) 
 
 Of a mountain's eminence. 
 
 While its wide circumference 
 
 In easy drapery falls 
 
 Over hamlets, over halls, 
 
 Wherever they may be 
 
 O'er the strange woods o'er the sea 
 
 Over spirits on the wing 
 
 Over every drowsy thing 
 
 And buries them up quite 
 
 In a labyrinth of light 
 
 And then, how deep! O, deep 
 
 Is the passion of their sleep. 
 
 In the morning they arise, 
 
 And their moony covering 
 
 Is soaring in the skies. 
 
 With the tempests as they toss 
 
 Like almost any thing 
 
 Or a yellow Albatross. 
 They use that moon no more 
 For the same end as before 
 Videlicet a tent 
 Which I think extravagant: 
 Its atomies, however, 
 Into a shower dissever, 
 Of which those butterflies 
 Of Earth, who seek the skies. 
 And so come down again 
 (Never-contented things!) 
 Have brought a specimen 
 Upon their quivering wings.
 
 252 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 THE LAKE. To . 
 
 In spring of youth it was my lot 
 
 To haunt of the wide world a spot 
 
 The which I could not love the less 
 
 So lovely was the loneliness 
 
 Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, 
 
 And the tall pines that towered around, 
 
 But when the Night had thrown her pall 
 
 Upon that spot, as upon all, 
 
 And the mystic wind went by 
 
 Murmuring in melody 
 
 Then ah, then, I would awake 
 
 To the terror of a lone lake. 
 
 Yet the terror was not fright, 
 
 But a tremulous delight 
 
 A feeling not the jeweled mine 
 
 Could teach or bribe me to define 
 
 Nor love although the Love were thine. 
 
 Death was in that poisonous wave, 
 
 And in its gulf a fitting grave 
 
 For him who thence could solace bring 
 
 To his lone imagining 
 
 Whose solitary soul could make 
 
 An Eden of that dim lake. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 t saw thee on thy bridal day 
 
 When a burning blush came o'er thee, 
 Through happiness around thee lay, 
 
 The world all love before thee;
 
 POE'S POEMS. 253 
 
 And thine eye a kindling light 
 
 (Whatever it might be) 
 Was all on Earth my aching sight 
 
 Ot Loveliness could see. 
 
 That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame 
 
 As such it well may pass 
 Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame 
 
 In the breast of him, alas! 
 
 Who saw thee on that bridal day, 
 
 When that deep blush would come o'er thee, 
 Though happiness around thee lay. 
 
 The world all love before thee. 
 
 TO M. L. S. . 
 
 Of all who hail thy presence as the morning 
 Of all to whom thine absence is the night 
 The blotting utterly from out high heaven 
 The sacred sun of all who, weeping, bless thee 
 Hourly for hope for life ah ! above all, 
 For the resurrection of deep-buried faith, 
 In Truth in Virtue in Humanity 
 Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed 
 Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen 
 At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be 
 
 light!" 
 
 At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled 
 In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes 
 Of all who owe thee most whose gratitude 
 Nearest resembles worship oh, remember 
 The truest the most fervently devoted,
 
 254 FOE'S POEMS. 
 
 And think that these weak lines are written by 
 
 him 
 
 By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think 
 His spirit is communing with an angel's. 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE DEAD. 
 
 Thy soul shall find itself alone 
 
 'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone . 
 
 Not one. of all the crowd, to pry 
 
 Into thine hour of secrecy. 
 
 Be silent in thy solitude 
 Which is not loneliness for then 
 
 The spirits of the dead who stood 
 In life before thee are again 
 
 In death around thee and their will 
 
 Shall overshadow thee, be still, 
 
 The night tho' clear shall frown 
 And the stars shall not look down 
 From their high thrones in the Heaven, 
 With light like Hope to mortals given 
 But their red orbs, without beam, 
 To thy weariness shall seem 
 Asa burning and a fever 
 Which would cling to thee forever. 
 
 Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish^ 
 Now are visions ne'er to vanish 
 From thy spirit shall they pass 
 No more like dew-drops from the grass. 
 
 The breeze the breath of God is stlil 
 And the mist upon the hill
 
 POE'S POEMS. 255 
 
 Sahdowy shadowy yet unbroken, 
 
 Is a symbol and a token 
 
 How it hangs upon the trees, > 
 
 A mystery of mysteries ! * . * .. 
 
 TO HELEN. 
 
 Helen, thy beauty is to me 
 
 Like those Nicean barks of yore, 
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
 
 The weary, way- worn wanderer bore 
 
 To his own native shore, 
 
 On desperate seas long wont to roam, ; 
 
 Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 
 Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
 
 To the glory that was Greece 
 And the grandeur that was Rome. 
 
 Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche 
 How statue-like I see thee stand! 
 The agate lamp within thy hand, 
 
 Ah ! Pysche, from the regions which ( 
 
 Are Holy Land! 
 
 ALONE. 
 
 Prom 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 lov'd, I lov'd alone.
 
 256 POE'S POEMS. 
 
 Then in my childhood in the dawn 
 Of a most stormy life was drawn 
 From ev'ry 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 roll'd 
 In its autumn tint of gold 
 From the lightning in the sky 
 As it pass'd 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. 
 
 THE END.
 
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 Los Angeles 
 
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