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Title: The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Editor: John Henry Ingram

Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #10031]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10031

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPLETE
POETICAL WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE ***

The Complete Poetical
Wo r k s o f E d g a r A l l a n P o e
edited by

John H. Ingram

Table of Contents

Preface

Memoir

Poems of Later Life
Dedication
Preface
The Raven
The Bells
Ulalume
To Helen
Annabel Lee
A Valentine
An Enigma
To My Mother
For Annie
To F——
To Frances S. Osgood
Eldorado
Eulalie
A Dream Within a Dream
To Marie Louise (Shew)
To The Same
The City in the Sea
The Sleeper
Bridal Ballad

Notes

Poems of Manhood
Lenore
To One in Paradise
The Coliseum
The Haunted Palace
The Conqueror Worm
Silence
Dreamland
To Zante
Hymn
Notes

Scenes from Politian
Note

Poems of Youth
Introduction (1831)
To Science
Al Aaraaf
Tamerlane
To Helen
The Valley of Unrest
Israfel
To —— ("I heed not that my earthly lot")
To —— ("The Bowers whereat, in dreams, I see")
To the River
Song
Spirits of the Dead
A Dream
Romance

Fairyland
The Lake
Evening Star
Imitation
"The Happiest Day"
Hymn (Translation from the Greek)
Dreams
"In Youth I have known one"
A Pæan
Notes

Doubtful Poems
Alone
To Isadore
The Village Street
The Forest Reverie
Notes

Prose Poems
The Island of the Fay
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Shadow—a Parable
Silence—a Fable

Essays
The Poetic Principle
The Philosophy of Composition
Old English Poetry

Preface

In placing before the public this collection of Edgar Poe's poetical works,
it is requisite to point out in what respects it differs from, and is superior to,
the numerous collections which have preceded it. Until recently, all editions,
whether American or English, of Poe's poems have been verbatim reprints of
the first posthumous collection, published at New York in 1850.
In 1874 I began drawing attention to the fact that unknown and
unreprinted poetry by Edgar Poe was in existence. Most, if not all, of the
specimens issued in my articles have since been reprinted by different
editors and publishers, but the present is the first occasion on which all the
pieces referred to have been garnered into one sheaf. Besides the poems thus
alluded to, this volume will be found to contain many additional pieces and
extra stanzas, nowhere else published or included in Poe's works. Such
verses have been gathered from printed or manuscript sources during a
research extending over many years.
In addition to the new poetical matter included in this volume, attention
should, also, be solicited on behalf of the notes, which will be found to
contain much matter, interesting both from biographical and bibliographical
points of view.
John H. Ingram.

Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe

During the last few years every incident in the life of Edgar Poe has been
subjected to microscopic investigation. The result has not been altogether
satisfactory. On the one hand, envy and prejudice have magnified every
blemish of his character into crime, whilst on the other, blind admiration
would depict him as far "too good for human nature's daily food." Let us
endeavor to judge him impartially, granting that he was as a mortal subject to
the ordinary weaknesses of mortality, but that he was tempted sorely, treated
badly, and suffered deeply.
The poet's ancestry and parentage are chiefly interesting as explaining
some of the complexities of his character. His father, David Poe, was of
Anglo-Irish extraction. Educated for the Bar, he elected to abandon it for the
stage. In one of his tours through the chief towns of the United States he met
and married a young actress, Elizabeth Arnold, member of an English family
distinguished for its musical talents. As an actress, Elizabeth Poe acquired
some reputation, but became even better known for her domestic virtues. In
those days the United States afforded little scope for dramatic energy, so it is
not surprising to find that when her husband died, after a few years of
married life, the young widow had a vain struggle to maintain herself and
three little ones, William Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. Before her premature
death, in December, 1811, the poet's mother had been reduced to the dire
necessity of living on the charity of her neighbors.
Edgar, the second child of David and Elizabeth Poe, was born at Boston,
in the United States, on the 19th of January, 1809. Upon his mother's death
at Richmond, Virginia, Edgar was adopted by a wealthy Scotch merchant,
John Allan. Mr. Allan, who had married an American lady and settled in
Virginia, was childless. He therefore took naturally to the brilliant and
beautiful little boy, treated him as his son, and made him take his own
surname. Edgar Allan, as he was now styled, after some elementary tuition
in Richmond, was taken to England by his adopted parents, and, in 1816,
placed at the Manor House School, Stoke-Newington.

Under the Rev. Dr. Bransby, the future poet spent a lustrum of his life
neither unprofitably nor, apparently, ungenially. Dr. Bransby, who is himself
so quaintly portrayed in Poe's tale of William Wilson, described "Edgar
Allan," by which name only he knew the lad, as "a quick and clever boy,"
who "would have been a very good boy had he not been spoilt by his
parents," meaning, of course, the Allans. They "allowed him an extravagant
amount of pocket-money, which enabled him to get into all manner of
mischief. Still I liked the boy," added the tutor, "but, poor fellow, his parents
spoiled him."
Poe has described some aspects of his school days in his oft cited story of
William Wilson. Probably there is the usual amount of poetic exaggeration in
these reminiscences, but they are almost the only record we have of that
portion of his career and, therefore, apart from their literary merits, are on
that account deeply interesting. The description of the sleepy old London
suburb, as it was in those days, is remarkably accurate, but the revisions
which the story of William Wilson went through before it reached its present
perfect state caused many of the author's details to deviate widely from their
original correctness. His schoolhouse in the earliest draft was truthfully
described as an "old, irregular, and cottage-built" dwelling, and so it
remained until its destruction a few years ago.
The soi-disant William Wilson, referring to those bygone happy days
spent in the English academy, says, "The teeming brain of childhood
requires no external world of incident to occupy or amuse it. The morning's
awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the connings, the recitations, the
periodical half-holidays and perambulations, the playground, 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 siècle de fer!'"
From this world of boyish imagination Poe was called to his adopted
parents' home in the United States. He returned to America in 1821, and was
speedily placed in an academy in Richmond, Virginia, in which city the
Allans continued to reside. Already well grounded in the elementary
processes of education, not without reputation on account of his European
residence, handsome, proud, and regarded as the heir of a wealthy man, Poe
must have been looked up to with no little respect by his fellow pupils. He
speedily made himself a prominent position in the school, not only by his

classical attainments, but by his athletic feats—accomplishments calculated
to render him a leader among lads.
"In the simple school athletics of those days, when a gymnasium had not
been heard of, he was facile princeps," is the reminiscence of his fellow
pupil, Colonel T. L. Preston. Poe he remembers as "a swift runner, a
wonderful leaper, and, what was more rare, a boxer, with some slight
training.... He would allow the strongest boy in the school to strike him with
full force in the chest. He taught me the secret, and I imitated him, after my
measure. It was to inflate the lungs to the uttermost, and at the moment of
receiving the blow to exhale the air. It looked surprising, and was, indeed, a
little rough; but with a good breast-bone, and some resolution, it was not
difficult to stand it. For swimming he was noted, being in many of his
athletic proclivities surprisingly like Byron in his youth."
In one of his feats Poe only came off second best. "A challenge to a foot
race," says Colonel Preston, "had been passed between the two classical
schools of the city; we selected Poe as our champion. The race came off one
bright May morning at sunrise, in the Capitol Square. Historical truth
compels me to add that on this occasion our school was beaten, and we had
to pay up our small bets. Poe ran well, but his competitor was a long-legged,
Indian-looking fellow, who would have outstripped Atalanta without the help
of the golden apples."
"In our Latin exercises in school," continues the colonel, "Poe was among
the first—not first without dispute. We had competitors who fairly disputed
the palm, especially one, Nat Howard, afterwards known as one of the ripest
scholars in Virginia, and distinguished also as a profound lawyer. If Howard
was less brilliant than Poe, he was far more studious; for even then the
germs of waywardness were developing in the nascent poet, and even then
no inconsiderable portion of his time was given to versifying. But if I put
Howard as a Latinist on a level with Poe, I do him full justice."
"Poe," says the colonel, "was very fond of the Odes of Horace, and
repeated them so often in my hearing that I learned by sound the words of
many before I understood their meaning. In the lilting rhythm of the
Sapphics and Iambics, his ear, as yet untutored in more complicated
harmonies, took special delight. Two odes, in particular, have been humming
in my ear all my life since, set to the tune of his recitation:
'Jam satis terris nivis atque dirce
Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente,'

and
'Non ebur neque aureum
Mea renidet in dono lacu ar,' etc.

"I remember that Poe was also a very fine French scholar. Yet, with all his
superiorities, he was not the master spirit nor even the favorite of the school.
I assign, from my recollection, this place to Howard. Poe, as I recall my
impressions now, was self-willed, capricious, inclined to be imperious, and,
though of generous impulses, not steadily kind, nor even amiable; and so
what he would exact was refused to him. I add another thing which had its
influence, I am sure. At the time of which I speak, Richmond was one of the
most aristocratic cities on this side of the Atlantic.... A school is, of its
nature, democratic; but still boys will unconsciously bear about the odor of
their fathers' notions, good or bad. Of Edgar Poe," who had then resumed his
parental cognomen, "it was known that his parents had been players, and that
he was dependent upon the bounty that is bestowed upon an adopted son. All
this had the effect of making the boys decline his leadership; and, on looking
back on it since, I fancy it gave him a fierceness he would otherwise not
have had."
This last paragraph of Colonel Preston's recollections cast a suggestive
light upon the causes which rendered unhappy the lad's early life and tended
to blight his prospective hopes. Although mixing with members of the best
families of the province, and naturally endowed with hereditary and native
pride, —fostered by the indulgence of wealth and the consciousness of
intellectual superiority,—Edgar Poe was made to feel that his parentage was
obscure, and that he himself was dependent upon the charity and caprice of
an alien by blood. For many lads these things would have had but little
meaning, but to one of Poe's proud temperament it must have been a source
of constant torment, and all allusions to it gall and wormwood. And Mr.
Allan was not the man to wean Poe from such festering fancies: as a rule he
was proud of the handsome and talented boy, and indulged him in all that
wealth could purchase, but at other times he treated him with contumely, and
made him feel the bitterness of his position.
Still Poe did maintain his leading position among the scholars at that
Virginian academy, and several still living have favored us with
reminiscences of him. His feats in swimming to which Colonel Preston has
alluded, are quite a feature of his youthful career. Colonel Mayo records one

daring performance in natation which is thoroughly characteristic of the lad.
One day in mid-winter, when standing on the banks of the James River, Poe
dared his comrade into jumping in, in order to swim to a certain point with
him. After floundering about in the nearly frozen stream for some time, they
reached the piles upon which Mayo's Bridge was then supported, and there
attempted to rest and try to gain the shore by climbing up the log abutment
to the bridge. Upon reaching the bridge, however, they were dismayed to
find that its plank flooring overlapped the abutment by several feet, and that
it was impossible to ascend it. Nothing remained for them but to let go their
slippery hold and swim back to the shore. Poe reached the bank in an
exhausted and benumbed condition, whilst Mayo was rescued by a boat just
as he was succumbing. On getting ashore Poe was seized with a violent
attack of vomiting, and both lads were ill for several weeks.
Alluding to another quite famous swimming feat of his own, the poet
remarked, "Any 'swimmer in the falls' in my days would have swum the
Hellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam from Ludlam's Wharf
to Warwick (six miles), in a hot June sun, against one of the strongest tides
ever known in the river. It would have been a feat comparatively easy to
swim twenty miles in still water. I would not think much," Poe added in a
strain of exaggeration not unusual with him, "of attempting to swim the
British Channel from Dover to Calais." Colonel Mayo, who had tried to
accompany him in this performance, had to stop on the way, and says that
Poe, when he reached the goal, emerged from the water with neck, face, and
back blistered. The facts of this feat, which was undertaken for a wager,
having been questioned, Poe, ever intolerant of contradiction, obtained and
published the affidavits of several gentlemen who had witnessed it. They
also certified that Poe did not seem at all fatigued, and that he walked back
to Richmond immediately after the performance.
The poet is generally remembered at this part of his career to have been
slight in figure and person, but to have been well made, active, sinewy, and
graceful. Despite the fact that he was thus noted among his schoolfellows
and indulged at home, he does not appear to have been in sympathy with his
surroundings. Already dowered with the "hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,"
he appears to have made foes both among those who envied him and those
whom, in the pride of intellectuality, he treated with pugnacious contempt.
Beneath the haughty exterior, however, was a warm and passionate heart,
which only needed circumstance to call forth an almost fanatical intensity of

affection. A well-authenticated instance of this is thus related by Mrs.
Whitman:
"While at the academy in Richmond, he one day accompanied a
schoolmate to his home, where he saw, for the first time, Mrs. Helen
Stannard, the mother of his young friend. This lady, on entering the room,
took his hands and spoke some gentle and gracious words of welcome,
which so penetrated 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 afterwards became the confidant of all his boyish sorrows, and
hers was the one redeeming influence that saved and guided him in the
earlier days of his turbulent and passionate youth."
When Edgar was unhappy at home, which, says his aunt, Mrs. Clemm,
"was very often the case, he went to Mrs. Stannard for sympathy, for
consolation, and for advice." Unfortunately, the sad fortune which so
frequently thwarted his hopes ended this friendship. The lady was
overwhelmed by a terrible calamity, and at the period when her guiding
voice was most requisite, she fell a prey to mental alienation. She died, and
was entombed in a neighboring cemetery, but her poor boyish admirer could
not endure to think of her lying lonely and forsaken in her vaulted home, so
he would leave the house at night and visit her tomb. When the nights were
drear, "when the autumnal rains fell, and the winds wailed mournfully over
the graves, he lingered longest, and came away most regretfully."
The memory of this lady, of this "one idolatrous and purely ideal love" of
his boyhood, was cherished to the last. The name of Helen frequently recurs
in his youthful verses, "The Pæan," now first included in his poetical works,
refers to her; and to her he inscribed the classic and exquisitely beautiful
stanzas beginning "Helen, thy beauty is to me."
Another important item to be noted in this epoch of his life is that he was
already a poet. Among his schoolfellows he appears to have acquired some
little reputation as a writer of satirical verses; but of his poetry, of that which,
as he declared, had been with him "not a purpose, but a passion," he
probably preserved the secret, especially as we know that at his adoptive
home poesy was a forbidden thing. As early as 1821 he appears to have
essayed various pieces, and some of these were ultimately included in his

first volume. With Poe poetry was a personal matter—a channel through
which the turbulent passions of his heart found an outlet. With feelings such
as were his, it came to pass, as a matter of course, that the youthful poet fell
in love. His first affair of the heart is, doubtless, reminiscently portrayed in
what he says of his boyish ideal, Byron. This passion, he remarks, "if
passion it can properly be called, was of the most thoroughly romantic,
shadowy, and imaginative character. It was born of the hour, and of the
youthful necessity to love. It had no peculiar regard to the person, or to the
character, or to the reciprocating affection... Any maiden, not immediately
and positively repulsive," he deems would have suited the occasion of
frequent and unrestricted intercourse with such an imaginative and poetic
youth. "The result," he deems, "was not merely natural, or merely probable;
it was as inevitable as destiny itself."
Between the lines may be read the history of his own love. "The Egeria of
his dreams—the Venus Aphrodite that sprang in full and supernal loveliness
from the bright foam upon the storm-tormented ocean of his thoughts," was
a little girl, Elmira Royster, who lived with her father in a house opposite to
the Allans in Richmond. The young people met again and again, and the
lady, who has only recently passed away, recalled Edgar as "a beautiful boy,"
passionately fond of music, enthusiastic and impulsive, but with prejudices
already strongly developed. A certain amount of love-making took place
between the young people, and Poe, with his usual passionate energy, ere he
left home for the University had persuaded his fair inamorata to engage
herself to him. Poe left home for the University of Virginia, Charlottesville,
in the beginning of 1825. lie wrote frequently to Miss Royster, but her father
did not approve of the affair, and, so the story runs, intercepted the
correspondence, until it ceased. At seventeen, Elmira became the bride of a
Mr. Shelton, and it was not until some time afterwards that Poe discovered
how it was his passionate appeals had failed to elicit any response from the
object of his youthful affection.
Poe's short university career was in many respects a repetition of his
course at the Richmond Academy. He became noted at Charlottesville both
for his athletic feats and his scholastic successes. He entered as a student on
February 1,1826, and remained till the close of the second session in
December of that year. "He entered the schools of ancient and modern
languages, attending the lectures on Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and
Italian. I was a member of the last three classes," says Mr. William

Wertenbaker, the recently deceased librarian, "and can testify that he was
tolerably regular in his attendance, and a successful student, having obtained
distinction at the final examination in Latin and French, and this was at that
time the highest honor a student could obtain. The present regulations in
regard to degrees had not then been adopted. Under existing regulations, he
would have graduated in the two languages above-named, and have been
entitled to diplomas."
These statements of Poe's classmate are confirmed by Dr. Harrison,
chairman of the Faculty, who remarks that the poet was a great favorite with
his fellow-students, and was noted for the remarkable rapidity with which he
prepared his recitations and for their accuracy, his translations from the
modern languages being especially noteworthy.
Several of Poe's classmates at Charlottesville have testified to his "noble
qualities" and other good endowments, but they remember that his
"disposition was rather retiring, and that he had few intimate associates." Mr.
Thomas Boiling, one of his fellow-students who has favored us with
reminiscences of him, says: "I was acquainted, with him, but that is about
all. My impression was, and is, that no one could say that he knew him. He
wore a melancholy face always, and even his smile—for I do not ever
remember to have seen him laugh— seemed to be forced. When he engaged
sometimes with others in athletic exercises, in which, so far as high or long
jumping, I believe he excelled all the rest, Poe, with the same ever sad face,
appeared to participate in what was amusement to the others more as a task
than sport."
Poe had no little talent for drawing, and Mr. John Willis states that the
walls of his college rooms were covered with his crayon sketches, whilst Mr.
Boiling mentions, in connection with the poet's artistic facility, some
interesting incidents. The two young men had purchased copies of a
handsomely-illustrated edition of Byron's poems, and upon visiting Poe a
few days after this purchase, Mr. Bolling found him engaged in copying one
of the engravings with crayon upon his dormitory ceiling. He continued to
amuse himself in this way from time to time until he had filled all the space
in his room with life-size figures which, it is remembered by those who saw
them, were highly ornamental and well executed.
As Mr. Bolling talked with his associate, Poe would continue to scribble
away with his pencil, as if writing, and when his visitor jestingly
remonstrated with him on his want of politeness, he replied that he had been

all attention, and proved that he had by suitable comment, assigning as a
reason for his apparent want of courtesy that he was trying to divide his
mind, to carry on a conversation and write sensibly upon a totally different
subject at the same time.
Mr. Wertenbaker, in his interesting reminiscences of the poet, says: "As
librarian I had frequent official intercourse with Poe, but it was at or near the
close of the session before I met him in the social circle. After spending an
evening together at a private house he invited me, on our return, into his
room. It was a cold night in December, and his fire having gone pretty nearly
out, by the aid of some tallow candles, and the fragments of a small table
which he broke up for the purpose, 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 large amount of money he had wasted, and of the
debts he had contracted during the session. If my memory be not at fault, he
estimated his indebtedness at $2,000 and, though they were gaming debts, he
was earnest and emphatic in the declaration that he was bound by honor to
pay them at the earliest opportunity."
This appears to have been Poe's last night at the university. He left it never
to return, yet, short as was his sojourn there, he left behind him such
honorable memories that his alma mater is now only too proud to enrol his
name among her most respected sons. Poe's adopted father, however, did not
regard his protégé's collegiate career with equal pleasure: whatever view he
may have entertained of the lad's scholastic successes, he resolutely refused
to discharge the gambling debts which, like too many of his classmates, he
had incurred. A violent altercation took place between Mr. Allan and the
youth, and Poe hastily quitted the shelter of home to try and make his way in
the world alone.
Taking with him such poems as he had ready, Poe made his way to
Boston, and there looked up some of his mother's old theatrical friends.
Whether he thought of adopting the stage as a profession, or whether he
thought of getting their assistance towards helping him to put a drama of his
own upon the stage,—that dream of all young authors,—is now unknown.
He appears to have wandered about for some time, and by some means or
the other succeeded in getting a little volume of poems printed "for private
circulation only." This was towards the end of 1827, when he was nearing
nineteen. Doubtless Poe expected to dispose of his volume by subscription
among his friends, but copies did not go off, and ultimately the book was

suppressed, and the remainder of the edition, for "reasons of a private
nature," destroyed.
What happened to the young poet, and how he contrived to exist for the
next year or so, is a mystery still unsolved. It has always been believed that
he found his way to Europe and met with some curious adventures there, and
Poe himself certainly alleged that such was the case. Numbers of mythical
stories have been invented to account for this chasm in the poet's life, and
most of them self-evidently fabulous. In a recent biography of Poe an
attempt had been made to prove that he enlisted in the army under an
assumed name, and served for about eighteen months in the artillery in a
highly creditable manner, receiving an honorable discharge at the instance of
Mr. Allan. This account is plausible, but will need further explanation of its
many discrepancies of dates, and verification of the different documents
cited in proof of it, before the public can receive it as fact. So many fables
have been published about Poe, and even many fictitious documents quoted,
that it behoves the unprejudiced to be wary in accepting any new statements
concerning him that are not thoroughly authenticated.
On the 28th February, 1829, Mrs. Allan died, and with her death the final
thread that had bound Poe to her husband was broken. The adopted son
arrived too late to take a last farewell of her whose influence had given the
Allan residence its only claim upon the poet's heart. A kind of truce was
patched up over the grave of the deceased lady, but, for the future, Poe found
that home was home no longer.
Again the young man turned to poetry, not only as a solace but as a means
of earning a livelihood. Again he printed a little volume of poems, which
included his longest piece, "Al Aaraaf," and several others now deemed
classic. The book was a great advance upon his previous collection, but
failed to obtain any amount of public praise or personal profit for its author.
Feeling the difficulty of living by literature at the same time that he saw
he might have to rely largely upon his own exertions for a livelihood, Poe
expressed a wish to enter the army. After no little difficulty a cadetship was
obtained for him at the West Point Military Academy, a military school in
many respects equal to the best in Europe for the education of officers for
the army. At the time Poe entered the Academy it possessed anything but an
attractive character, the discipline having been of the most severe character,
and the accommodation in many respects unsuitable for growing lads.

The poet appears to have entered upon this new course of life with his
usual enthusiasm, and for a time to have borne the rigid rules of the place
with unusual steadiness. He entered the institution on the 1st July, 1830, and
by the following March had been expelled for determined disobedience.
Whatever view may be taken of Poe's conduct upon this occasion, it must be
seen that the expulsion from West Point was of his own seeking. Highly-
colored pictures have been drawn of his eccentric behavior at the Academy,
but the fact remains that he wilfully, or at any rate purposely, flung away his
cadetship. It is surmised with plausibility that the second marriage of Mr.
Allan, and his expressed intention of withdrawing his help and of not
endowing or bequeathing this adopted son any of his property, was the
mainspring of Poe's action. Believing it impossible to continue without aid
in a profession so expensive as was a military life, he determined to
relinquish it and return to his long cherished attempt to become an author.
Expelled from the institution that afforded board and shelter, and
discarded by his former protector, the unfortunate and penniless young man
yet a third time attempted to get a start in the world of letters by means of a
volume of poetry. If it be true, as alleged, that several of his brother cadets
aided his efforts by subscribing for his little work, there is some possibility
that a few dollars rewarded this latest venture. Whatever may have resulted
from the alleged aid, it is certain that in a short time after leaving the
Military Academy Poe was reduced to sad straits. He disappeared for nearly
two years from public notice, and how he lived during that period has never
been satisfactorily explained. In 1833 he returns to history in the character of
a winner of a hundred-dollar award offered by a newspaper for the best
story.
The prize was unanimously adjudged to Poe by the adjudicators, and Mr.
Kennedy, an author of some little repute, having become interested by the
young man's evident genius, generously assisted him towards obtaining a
livelihood by literary labor. Through his new friend's introduction to the
proprietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, a moribund magazine
published at irregular intervals, Poe became first a paid contributor, and
eventually the editor of the publication, which ultimately he rendered one of
the most respected and profitable periodicals of the day. This success was
entirely due to the brilliancy and power of Poe's own contributions to the
magazine.

In March, 1834, Mr. Allan died, and if our poet had maintained any hopes
of further assistance from him, all doubt was settled by the will, by which
the whole property of the deceased was left to his second wife and her three
sons. Poe was not named.
On the 6th May, 1836, Poe, who now had nothing but his pen to trust to,
married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a child of only fourteen, and with her
mother as housekeeper, started a home of his own. In the meantime his
various writings in the Messenger began to attract attention and to extend his
reputation into literary circles, but beyond his editorial salary of about $520
brought him no pecuniary reward.
In January, 1837, for reasons never thoroughly explained, Poe severed his
connection with the Messenger, and moved with all his household goods
from Richmond to New York. Southern friends state that Poe was desirous
of either being admitted into partnership with his employer, or of being
allowed a larger share of the profits which his own labors procured. In New
York his earnings seem to have been small and irregular, his most important
work having been a republication from the Messenger in book form of his
Defoe-like romance entitled Arthur Gordon Pym. The truthful air of "The
Narrative," as well as its other merits, excited public curiosity both in
England and America; but Poe's remuneration does not appear to have been
proportionate to its success, nor did he receive anything from the numerous
European editions the work rapidly passed through.
In 1838 Poe was induced by a literary friend to break up his New York
home and remove with his wife and aunt (her mother) to Philadelphia. The
Quaker city was at that time quite a hotbed for magazine projects, and
among the many new periodicals Poe was enabled to earn some kind of a
living. To Burton's Gentleman's Magazine for 1837 he had contributed a few
articles, but in 1840 he arranged with its proprietor to take up the editorship.
Poe had long sought to start a magazine of his own, and it was probably with
a view to such an eventuality that one of his conditions for accepting the
editorship of the Gentleman's Magazine was that his name should appear
upon the title-page.
Poe worked hard at the Gentleman's for some time, contributing to its
columns much of his best work; ultimately, however, he came to loggerheads
with its proprietor, Burton, who disposed of the magazine to a Mr. Graham, a
rival publisher. At this period Poe collected into two volumes, and got them
published as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesques, twenty-five of his

stories, but he never received any remuneration, save a few copies of the
volumes, for the work. For some time the poet strove most earnestly to start
a magazine of his own, but all his efforts failed owing to his want of capital.
The purchaser of Burton's magazine, having amalgamated it with another,
issued the two under the title of Graham's Magazine. Poe became a
contributor to the new venture, and in November of the year 1840 consented
to assume the post of editor. Under Poe's management, assisted by the
liberality of Mr. Graham, Graham's Magazine became a grand success. To
its pages Poe contributed some of his finest and most popular tales, and
attracted to the publication the pens of many of the best contemporary
authors. The public was not slow in showing its appreciation of pabulum put
before it, and, so its directors averred, in less than two years the circulation
rose from five to fifty-two thousand copies.
A great deal of this success was due to Poe's weird and wonderful stories;
still more, perhaps, to his trenchant critiques and his startling theories anent
cryptology. As regards the tales now issued in Graham's, attention may
especially be drawn to the world-famed "Murders in the Rue Morgue," the
first of a series—"une espèce de trilogie," as Baudelaire styles them—
illustrative of an analytic phase of Poe's peculiar mind. This trilogie of tales,
of which the later two were "The Purloined Letter" and "The Mystery of
Marie Roget," was avowedly written to prove the capability of solving the
puzzling riddles of life by identifying another person's mind by our own. By
trying to follow the processes by which a person would reason out a certain
thing, Poe propounded the theory that another person might ultimately
arrive, as it were, at that person's conclusions, indeed, penetrate the
innermost arcanum of his brain and read his most secret thoughts. Whilst the
public was still pondering over the startling proposition, and enjoying
perusal of its apparent proofs, Poe still further increased his popularity and
drew attention to his works by putting forward the attractive but less
dangerous theorem that "human ingenuity could not construct a cipher which
human ingenuity could not solve."
This cryptographic assertion was made in connection with what the public
deemed a challenge, and Poe was inundated with ciphers more or less
abstruse, demanding solution. In the correspondence which ensued in
Graham's Magazine and other publications, Poe was universally
acknowledged to have proved his case, so far as his own personal ability to
unriddle such mysteries was concerned. Although he had never offered to

undertake such a task, he triumphantly solved every cryptogram sent to him,
with one exception, and that exception he proved conclusively was only an
imposture, for which no solution was possible.
The outcome of this exhaustive and unprofitable labor was the fascinating
story of "The Gold Bug," a story in which the discovery of hidden treasure is
brought about by the unriddling of an intricate cipher.
The year 1841 may be deemed the brightest of Poe's checkered career. On
every side acknowledged to be a new and brilliant literary light, chief editor
of a powerful magazine, admired, feared, and envied, with a reputation
already spreading rapidly in Europe as well as in his native continent, the
poet might well have hoped for prosperity and happiness. But dark cankers
were gnawing his heart. His pecuniary position was still embarrassing. His
writings, which were the result of slow and careful labor, were poorly paid,
and his remuneration as joint editor of Graham's was small. He was not
permitted to have undivided control, and but a slight share of the profits of
the magazine he had rendered world-famous, whilst a fearful domestic
calamity wrecked all his hopes, and caused him to resort to that refuge of the
broken-hearted—to that drink which finally destroyed his prospects and his
life.
Edgar Poe's own account of this terrible malady and its cause was made
towards the end of his career. Its truth has never been disproved, and in its
most important points it has been thoroughly substantiated. To a
correspondent he writes in January 1848: "You say, 'Can you hint to me what
was "that terrible evil" which caused the "irregularities" so profoundly
lamented? Yes, I can do more than hint. This 'evil' was the greatest which
can befall a man. Six years ago, a wife whom I loved as no man ever loved
before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took
leave of her forever, and underwent all the agonies of her death. She
recovered partially, and I again hoped. At the end of a year, the vessel broke
again. I went through precisely the same scene.... Then again—again— and
even once again at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her
death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly and
clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally
sensitive—nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long
intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I
drank—God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my
enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the

insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure, when
I found one in the death of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a
man. It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair
which I could not longer have endured, without total loss of reason."
The poet at this period was residing in a small but elegant little home,
superintended by his ever-faithful guardian, his wife's mother—his own
aunt, Mrs. Clemm, the lady whom he so gratefully addressed in after years in
the well-known sonnet, as "more than mother unto me." But a change came
o'er the spirit of his dream! His severance from Graham's, owing to we
know not what causes, took place, and his fragile schemes of happiness
faded as fast as the sunset. His means melted away, and he became unfitted
by mental trouble and ill-health to earn more. The terrible straits to which he
and his unfortunate beloved ones were reduced may be comprehended after
perusal of these words from Mr. A. B. Harris's reminiscences.
Referring to the poet's residence in Spring Gardens, Philadelphia, this
writer says: "It was during their stay there that Mrs. Poe, while singing one
evening, ruptured a blood-vessel, and after that she suffered a hundred
deaths. She could not bear the slightest exposure, and needed the utmost
care; and all those conveniences as to apartment and surroundings which are
so important in the case of an invalid were almost matters of life and death
to her. And yet the room where she lay for weeks, hardly able to breathe,
except as she was fanned, was a little narrow place, with the ceiling so low
over the narrow bed that her head almost touched it. But no one dared to
speak, Mr. Poe was so sensitive and irritable; 'quick as steel and flint,' said
one who knew him in those days. And he would not allow a word about the
danger of her dying: the mention of it drove him wild."
Is it to be wondered at, should it not indeed be forgiven him, if, impelled
by the anxieties and privations at home, the unfortunate poet, driven to the
brink of madness, plunged still deeper into the Slough of Despond? Unable
to provide for the pressing necessities of his beloved wife, the distracted man
"would steal out of the house at night, and go off and wander about the street
for hours, proud, heartsick, despairing, not knowing which way to turn, or
what to do, while Mrs. Clemm would endure the anxiety at home as long as
she could, and then start off in search of him."
During his calmer moments Poe exerted all his efforts to proceed with his
literary labors. He continued to contribute to Graham's Magazine, the
proprietor of which periodical remained his friend to the end of his life, and

also to some other leading publications of Philadelphia and New York. A
suggestion having been made to him by N. P. Willis, of the latter city, he
determined to once more wander back to it, as he found it impossible to live
upon his literary earnings where he was.
Accordingly, about the middle of 1845, Poe removed to New York, and
shortly afterwards was engaged by Willis and his partner Morris as sub-
editor on the Evening Mirror. He was, says Willis, "employed by us for
several months as critic and subeditor.... 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
capricious 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 genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him always
with deferential courtesy.... With a prospect of taking the lead in another
periodical, he at last voluntarily gave up his employment with us."
A few weeks before Poe relinquished his laborious and ill-paid work on
the Evening Mirror, his marvellous poem of "The Raven" was published.
The effect was magical. Never before, nor, indeed, ever since, has a single
short poem produced such a great and immediate enthusiasm. It did more to
render its author famous than all his other writings put together. It made him
the literary lion of the season; called into existence innumerable parodies;
was translated into various languages, and, indeed, created quite a literature
of its own. Poe was naturally delighted with the success his poem had
attained, and from time to time read it in his musical manner in public halls
or at literary receptions. Nevertheless he affected to regard it as a work of art
only, and wrote his essay entitled the "Philosophy of Composition," to prove
that it was merely a mechanical production made in accordance with certain
set rules.
Although our poet's reputation was now well established, he found it still
a difficult matter to live by his pen. Even when in good health, he wrote
slowly and with fastidious care, and when his work was done had great
difficulty in getting publishers to accept it. Since his death it has been proved
that many months often elapsed before he could get either his most admired
poems or tales published.

Poe left the Evening Mirror in order to take part in the Broadway Journal,
wherein he re-issued from time to time nearly the whole of his prose and
poetry. Ultimately he acquired possession of this periodical, but, having no
funds to carry it on, after a few months of heartbreaking labor he had to
relinquish it. Exhausted in body and mind, the unfortunate man now
retreated with his dying wife and her mother to a quaint little cottage at
Fordham, outside New York. Here after a time the unfortunate household
was reduced to the utmost need, not even having wherewith to purchase the
necessities of life. At this dire moment, some friendly hand, much to the
indignation and dismay of Poe himself, made an appeal to the public on
behalf of the hapless family.
The appeal had the desired effect. Old friends and new came to the rescue,
and, thanks to them, and especially to Mrs. Shew, the "Marie Louise" of
Poe's later poems, his wife's dying moments were soothed, and the poet's
own immediate wants provided for. In January, 1846, Virginia Poe died; and
for some time after her death the poet remained in an apathetic stupor, and,
indeed, it may be truly said that never again did his mental faculties appear
to regain their former power.
For another year or so Poe lived quietly at Fordham, guarded by the
watchful care of Mrs. Clemm, —writing little, but thinking out his
philosophical prose poem of "Eureka," which he deemed the crowning work
of his life. His life was as abstemious and regular as his means were small.
Gradually, however, as intercourse with fellow literati re-aroused his
dormant energies, he began to meditate a fresh start in the world. His old and
never thoroughly abandoned project of starting a magazine of his own, for
the enunciation of his own views on literature, now absorbed all his
thoughts. In order to get the necessary funds for establishing his publication
on a solid footing, he determined to give a series of lectures in various parts
of the States.
His re-entry into public life only involved him in a series of misfortunes.
At one time he was engaged to be married to Mrs. Whitman, a widow lady
of considerable intellectual and literary attainments; but, after several
incidents of a highly romantic character, the match was broken off. In 1849
Poe revisited the South, and, amid the scenes and friends of his early life,
passed some not altogether unpleasing time. At Richmond, Virginia, he again
met his first love, Elmira, now a wealthy widow, and, after a short renewed

acquaintance, was once more engaged to marry her. But misfortune
continued to dog his steps.
A publishing affair recalled him to New York. He left Richmond by boat
for Baltimore, at which city he arrived on the 3d October, and handed his
trunk to a porter to carry to the train for Philadelphia. What now happened
has never been clearly explained. Previous to starting on his journey, Poe
had complained of indisposition,—of chilliness and of exhaustion,—and it is
not improbable that an increase or continuance of these symptoms had
tempted him to drink, or to resort to some of those narcotics he is known to
have indulged in towards the close of his life. Whatever the cause of his
delay, the consequences were fatal. Whilst in a state of temporary mania or
insensibility, he fell into the hands of a band of ruffians, who were scouring
the streets in search of accomplices or victims. What followed is given on
undoubted authority.
His captors carried the unfortunate poet into an electioneering den, where
they drugged him with whisky. It was election day for a member of
Congress, and Poe with other victims, was dragged from polling station to
station, and forced to vote the ticket placed in his hand. Incredible as it may
appear, the superintending officials of those days registered the proffered
vote, quite regardless of the condition of the person personifying a voter. The
election over, the dying poet was left in the streets to perish, but, being found
ere life was extinct, he was carried to the Washington University Hospital,
where he expired on the 7th of October, 1849, in the forty-first year of his
age.
Edgar Poe was buried in the family grave of his grandfather, General Poe,
in the presence of a few friends and relatives. On the 17th November, 1875,
his remains were removed from their first resting-place and, in the presence
of a large number of people, were placed under a marble monument
subscribed for by some of his many admirers. His wife's body has recently
been placed by his side.
The story of that "fitful fever" which constituted the life of Edgar Poe
leaves upon the reader's mind the conviction that he was, indeed, truly
typified by that:
"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—nevermore.'"

John H. Ingram.

Poems of Later Life

Preface
These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their
redemption from the many improvements 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

defence 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 circumstances, 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 commendations, of mankind.

1845. E. A. P.

The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, 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 chamber 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;
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,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness 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 mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered 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,
Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat 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 mystery 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 an instant 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 countenance 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—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled 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 further 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 unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never—nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself 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."

This 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, perfumed 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 nepenthé from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthé, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter 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."

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!
Published, 1845.
Note

The Bells

I Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In their icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a 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.
II Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
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, from out the sounding cells,
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!

III 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!
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!
IV 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
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 pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan 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.

1849

Note

Ulalume
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
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 scoriac rivers that roll—
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down 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 sun-dials hinted of morn—
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn—
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 till 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 Sibyllic 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,
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 a 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."

1847

Note

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 precipitate 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 wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe—
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, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
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 footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me—(O Heaven!—O 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 lustre 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 unwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial 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!

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 are 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!
1846

Note

Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
Note

A Valentine
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure

Divine—a talisman—an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—
The words—the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets by poets—as the name is a poet's, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—
Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
1846

{To discover the names in this and the following poem, 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.}
Note

An Enigma
"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet—
Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff—
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant

Bubbles—ephemeral and so transparent—
But this is, now—you may depend upon it—
Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dint
Of the dear names that lie concealed within't.
{See comment after previous poem.}
Note

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 installed 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.
1849

{The above was addressed to the poet's mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm.—Ed.}
Note

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
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
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,
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—
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 of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
1849
Note

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 storm—but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright inland smile.
1845
Note

To Frances S. Osgood
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.
1845
Note

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,
"Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"

The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
1849
Note

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 girl!
And never a flake
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded 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,
Astarté within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye—
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

1845
Note

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 within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers 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?
1849
Note

Marie Louise (Shew)

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 thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship,—oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
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.
1847
Note

(2) To Marie Louise (Shew)
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
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 hidden 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 empurpled vapors, far away
To where the prospect terminates—thee only!
Note

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.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
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 marvellous 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 gaily-jewelled 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.

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.
1835?
Note

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 moulders 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!

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
For ever 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—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, 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.
1845
Note

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 reassure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o'er me,
And to the churchyard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D'Elormie,
"Oh, I am happy now!"

And thus the words were spoken,
And thus the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden keys

That proves me happy now!

Would to 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.
1845
Note

Notes

Note on The Raven
"The Raven" was first published on the 29th January, 1845, in the New
York Evening Mirror—a paper its author was then assistant editor of. It was
prefaced by the following words, understood to have been written by N. P.
Willis:
"We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the second
number of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by Edgar
Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of 'fugitive
poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for
subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent
sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' It is one of those 'dainties
bred in a book' which we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody
who reads it."
In the February number of the American Review the poem was published
as by "Quarles," and it was introduced by the following note, evidently
suggested if not written by Poe himself.
["The following lines from a correspondent—besides the deep, quaint
strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous
touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the
author—appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique
rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English
rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing
corresponding diversities of effect, have been thoroughly studied, much
more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the classic
tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by power of accent, several
advantages for versification over our own, chiefly through greater abundance
of spondaic feet, we have other and very great advantages of sound by the
modern usage of rhyme. Alliteration is nearly the only effect of that kind
which the ancients had in common with us. It will be seen that much of the

melody of 'The Raven' arises from alliteration and the studious use of similar
sounds in unusual places. In regard to its measure, it may be noted that if all
the verses were like the second, they might properly be placed merely in
short lines, producing a not uncommon form: but the presence in all the
others of one line—mostly the second in the verse" (stanza?)—"which flows
continuously, with only an aspirate pause in the middle, like that before the
short line in the Sapphio Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no
similarity of sound with any part beside, gives the versification an entirely
different effect. We could wish the capacities of our noble language in
prosody were better understood."
Ed. Am. Rev.]

Note on The Bells
The bibliographical history of "The Bells" is curious. The subject, and
some lines of the original version, having been suggested by the poet's
friend, Mrs. Shew, Poe, when he wrote out the first draft of the poem,
headed it, "The Bells. By Mrs. M. A. Shew." This draft, now the editor's
property, consists of only seventeen lines, and reads thus:

I The bells!—ah the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats—
From their merry little throats—
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells—
Of the bells!
II The bells!—ah, the bells!
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats—
From their deep-toned throats—
From their melancholy throats

How I shudder at the notes
Of the bells, bells, bells—
Of the bells!

In the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this poem, and sent it to
the editor of the Union Magazine. It was not published. So, in the following
February, the poet forwarded to the same periodical a much enlarged and
altered transcript. Three months having elapsed without publication, another
revision of the poem, similar to the current version, was sent, and in the
following October was published in the Union Magazine.

Note on Ulalume
This poem was first published in Colton's American Review for December
1847, as "To — — Ulalume: a Ballad." Being reprinted immediately in the
Home Journal, it was copied into various publications with the name of the
editor, N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to him. When first
published, it contained the following additional stanza which Poe
subsequently, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman wisely suppressed:

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 spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls—
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Note on To Helen
"To Helen" (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was not published Until November
1848, although written several months earlier. It first appeared in the Union
Magazine and with the omission, contrary to the knowledge or desire of Poe,
of the line, "Oh, God! oh, Heaven—how my heart beats in coupling those
two words".

Note on Annabel Lee
"Annabel Lee" was written early in 1849, and is evidently an expression
of the poet's undying love for his deceased bride although at least one of his
lady admirers deemed it a response to her admiration. Poe sent a copy of the
ballad to the Union Magazine, in which publication it appeared in January
1850, three months after the author's death. Whilst suffering from "hope
deferred" as to its fate, Poe presented a copy of "Annabel Lee" to the editor
of the Southern Literary Messenger, who published it in the November
number of his periodical, a month after Poe's death. In the meantime the
poet's own copy, left among his papers, passed into the hands of the person
engaged to edit his works, and he quoted the poem in an obituary of Poe in
the New York Tribune, before any one else had an opportunity of publishing
it.

Note on A Valentine
"A Valentine," one of three poems addressed to Mrs. Osgood, appears to
have been written early in 1846.

Note on An Enigma
"An Enigma," addressed to Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewig ("Stella"), was sent to
that lady in a letter, in November 1847, and the following March appeared in
Sartain's Union Magazine.

Note on To My Mother
The sonnet, "To My Mother" (Maria Clemm), was sent for publication to
the short-lived Flag of our Union, early in 1849, but does not appear to have
been issued until after its author's death, when it appeared in the Leaflets of
Memory for 1850.

Note on For Annie
"For Annie" was first published in the Flag of our Union, in the spring of
1849. Poe, annoyed at some misprints in this issue, shortly afterwards caused
a corrected copy to be inserted in the Home Journal.

Note on To F——
"To F——" (Frances Sargeant Osgood) appeared in the Broadway Journal
for April 1845. These lines are but slightly varied from those inscribed "To
Mary," in the Southern Literary Messenger for July 1835, and subsequently
republished, with the two stanzas transposed, in Graham's Magazine for
March 1842, as "To One Departed."

Note on To Frances S. Osgood
"To F—s S. O—d," a portion of the poet's triune tribute to Mrs. Osgood,
was published in the Broadway Journal for September 1845. The earliest
version of these lines appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger for
September 1835, as "Lines written in an Album," and was addressed to Eliza
White, the proprietor's daughter. Slightly revised, the poem reappeared in
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1839, as "To ——."

Note on Eldorado
Although "Eldorado" was published during Poe's lifetime, in 1849, in the
Flag of our Union, it does not appear to have ever received the author's
finishing touches.

Note on Eulalie
"Eulalie—a Song" first appears in Colton's American Review for July,
1845.

Note on A Dream within a Dream
"A Dream within a Dream" does not appear to have been published as a
separate poem during its author's lifetime. A portion of it was contained, in
1829, in the piece beginning, "Should my early life seem," and in 1831 some
few lines of it were used as a conclusion to "Tamerlane." In 1849 the poet
sent a friend all but the first nine lines of the piece as a separate poem,
headed "For Annie."

Note on To Marie Louise (Shew)
"To M—— L—— S——," addressed to Mrs. Marie Louise Shew, was
written in February 1847, and published shortly afterwards. In the first
posthumous collection of Poe's poems these lines were, for some reason,
included in the "Poems written in Youth," and amongst those poems they
have hitherto been included.

>Note on the second poem entitled To Marie Louise
(Shew)
"To——," a second piece addressed to Mrs. Shew, and written in 1848,
was also first published, but in a somewhat faulty form, in the above named
posthumous collection.

Note on The City in the Sea
Under the title of "The Doomed City" the initial version of "The City in
the Sea" appeared in the 1831 volume of Poems by Poe: it reappeared as
"The City of Sin," in the Southern Literary Messenger for August 1835,
whilst the present draft of it first appeared in Colton's American Review for
April, 1845.

Note on The Sleeper

As "Irene," the earliest known version of "The Sleeper," appeared in the
1831 volume. It reappeared in the Literary Messenger for May 1836, and, in
its present form, in the Broadway Journal for May 1845.

Note on The Bridal Ballad
"The Bridal Ballad" is first discoverable in the Southern Literary
Messenger for January 1837, and, in its present compressed and revised
form, was reprinted in the Broadway Journal for August, 1845.

Poems of Manhood

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
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 débonnaire, 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 pæan 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.
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—
From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven."
1833

Note

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,
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!

Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er the billow,
From love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow!
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!
1835

Note

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 an 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!
I feel ye now—I feel ye in your strength—
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan 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, spectre-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 mouldering plinths—these sad and blackened 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.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men—we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent—we pallid stones.
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."
1838

Note

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),
And every 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 lute's well-tunëd law,
Bound 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, flowing,
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 travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh—but smile no more.
1838

Note

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 theatre, 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 Wo!

That motley 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.

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.
1838

Note

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 twofold 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 fate (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!
1840

Note

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
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 traveller 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.

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 traveller, travelling 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.
1844

Note

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
Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
1887

Note

Hymn
At morn—at noon—at twilight dim—
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo—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!
1885

Note

Notes

Note on Lenore
"Lenore" was published, very nearly in its existing shape, in The Pioneer
for 1843, but under the title of "The Pæan"—now first published in the
Poems Of Youth—the germ of it appeared in 1831.

Note on To One in Paradise
"To One in Paradise" was included originally in "The Visionary" (a tale
now known as "The Assignation"), in July, 1835, and appeared as a separate
poem entitled "To Ianthe in Heaven," in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine for
July, 1839. The fifth stanza is now added, for the first time, to the piece.

Note on The Coliseum
"The Coliseum" appeared in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor (sic) in 1833,
and was republished in the Southern Literary Messenger for August 1835, as
"A Prize Poem."

Note on The Haunted Palace

"The Haunted Palace" originally issued in the Baltimore American
Museum for April, 1888, was subsequently embodied in that much admired
tale, "The Fall of the House of Usher," and published in it in Burton's
Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1839. It reappeared in that as a
separate poem in the 1845 edition of Poe's poems.

Note on The Conqueror Worm
"The Conqueror Worm," then contained in Poe's favorite tale of "Ligeia,"
was first published in the American Museum for September, 1838. As a
separate poem, it reappeared in Graham's Magazine for January, 1843.

Note on Silence
The sonnet, "Silence," was originally published in Burton's Gentleman's
Magazine for April, 1840.

Note on Dreamland
The first known publication of "Dreamland" was in Graham's Magazine
for June, 1844.

Note on To Zante

The "Sonnet to Zante" is not discoverable earlier than January, 1837,
when it appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger.

Note on Hymn
The initial version of the "Catholic Hymn" was contained in the story of
"Morella," and published in the Southern Literary Messenger for April,
1885. The lines as they now stand, and with their present title, were first
published in the Broadway Journal for August, 1845.

Scenes from Politian

an unpublished drama

I
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 Alessandra,
Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy!
Alessandra Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing
Thy happiness—what ails thee, cousin of mine?
Why didst thou sigh so deeply?
Castiglione 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]
Alessandra 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.
Castiglione (musing) Nothing, fair cousin, nothing—
Not even deep sorrow—
Wears it away like evil hours and wine.
I will amend.

Alessandra Do it! I would have thee drop
Thy riotous company, too—fellows low born
Ill suit the like of old Di Broglio's heir
And Alessandra's husband.
Castiglione I will drop them.
Alessandra 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.
Castiglione I'll see to it.
Alessandra Then see to it!—pay more attention, sir,
To a becoming carriage—much thou wantest
In dignity.
Castiglione Much, much, oh, much I want
In proper dignity.
Alessandra (haughtily) Thou mockest me, sir!
Castiglione Sweet, gentle Lalage!
(abstractedly)
Alessandra 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?
Castiglione (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].
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.
Alessandra What! Politian
Of Britain, Earl of Leicester?
Di Broglio 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.
Alessandra I have heard much of this Politian.
Gay, volatile and giddy—is he not,
And little given to thinking?
Di Broglio Far from it, love.
No branch, they say, of all philosophy
So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.
Learned as few are learned.
Alessandra 'Tis very strange!
I have known men have seen Politian
And sought his company. They speak of him
As of one who entered madly into life,
Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs.
Castiglione Ridiculous! Now I have seen Politian
And know him well—nor learned nor mirthful
he.
He is a dreamer, and shut out
From common passions.
Di Broglio 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.
Lalage Jacinta! is it thou?
Jacinta (pertly) Yes, ma'am, I'm here.
Lalage 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.
Jacinta (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.)
Lalage "It in another climate, so he said,
Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this soil!"
[pauses—turns over some leaves and resumes.]
"No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower—
But Ocean ever to refresh mankind
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 infelicity
Seemed to have years too many"—Ah, luckless 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 keep—two gentle maids
With gentle names—Eiros and Charmion!
Rainbow and Dove!—Jacinta!
Jacinta Madam, what is it?
(pettishly)
Lalage Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind
As go down in the library and bring me
The Holy Evangelists?
Jacinta Pshaw!
[Exit]
Lalage 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]
Jacinta There, ma'am, 's the book.
(aside) Indeed she is very troublesome.
Lalage What didst thou say, Jacinta?
(astonished) Have I 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.]
Jacinta (aside) I can't believe
She has any more jewels—no—no—she gave me all.
Lalage 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?

Jacinta (aside) Is there no further aid!
That's meant for me.
[aloud]
I'm sure, madam, you need not
Be always throwing those jewels in my teeth.
Lalage Jewels! Jacinta,—now indeed, Jacinta, I thought not of
the jewels.
Jacinta Oh, perhaps not!
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, madam, 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.]
Lalage 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 the 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 thou 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——
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!
Lalage (arising I cannot pray!—My soul is at war with God!
hurriedly) The frightful sounds of merriment below;
Disturb 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!
Lalage 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!
Yet stay! yet stay!—what was it thou saidst of prayer
And penitence? Didst thou not speak of faith
And vows before the throne?
Monk I did.
Lalage 'Tis well.
There is a vow 'twere fitting should be made—
A sacred vow, imperative and urgent,
A solemn vow!
Monk Daughter, this zeal is well!
Lalage 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 it on high.]
Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mine
Is written in heaven!
Monk Thy words are madness, daughter,
And speak 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!
Lalage 'Tis sworn!

III
An Apartment in a Palace. POLITIAN and BALDAZZAR.
Baldazzar Arouse thee now, Politian!
Thou must not—nay indeed, indeed, thou shalt not
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!
Baldazzar Politian, it doth grieve me
To see thee thus!
Politian 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!
Baldazzar To the field then—to the field—
To the senate or the field.

Politian 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?
Baldazzar I heard it not.
I heard not any voice except thine own,
And the echo of thine own.
Politian Then I but dreamed.
Baldazzar 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.
Politian It is a phantom voice!
Didst thou not hear it then?
Baldazzar I heard it not.
Politian 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 further duties
Unto thy friend.
Baldazzar Thou speakest a fearful riddle
I will not understand.
Politian 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 balmier now than it was wont to be—
Rich melodies are floating in the winds—
A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth—
And with a holier lustre the quiet moon
Sitteth in Heaven.—Hist! hist! thou canst not say
Thou hearest not now, Baldazzar?
Baldazzar Indeed I hear not.
Politian 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!
Baldazzar I myself hear it now.
Be still!—the voice, if I mistake not greatly,
Proceeds from younder 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.
Politian Be still!—it comes again!
Voice (very faintly) "And is thy heart so strong1
As for to leave me thus,
That have loved thee so long,
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay!"
Baldazzar The song is English, and I oft have heard it
In merry England—never so plaintively—

Hist! hist! it comes again!
Voice (more "Is it so strong
loudly) As for to leave me thus,
That have loved thee so long,
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay!"
Baldazzar 'Tis hushed and all is still!
Politian All is not still.
Baldazzar Let us go down.
Politian Go down, Baldazzar, go!
Baldazzar The hour is growing late—the Duke awaits us,—
Thy presence is expected in the hall
Below. What ails thee, Earl Politian?
Voice (distinctly) "Who have loved thee so long,
In wealth and woe among,
And is thy heart so strong?
Say nay! say nay!"
Baldazzar 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!
Politian 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 earldom
To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice—
"To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear
Once more that silent tongue."
Baldazzar Let me beg you, sir,
Descend with me—the Duke may be offended.
Let us go down, I pray you.
Voice (loudly) Say nay!—say nay!
Politian (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.
Baldazzar Your lordship's pleasure
Shall be attended to. Good-night, Politian.
Politian 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 woe—ah woe is me!
This mockery is most cruel—most cruel indeed!
Politian Weep not! oh, sob not thus!—thy bitter tears
Will madden me. Oh, mourn not, Lalage—
Be comforted! I know—I know it all,
And still I speak of love. Look at me, brightest,
And beautiful Lalage!—turn here thine eyes!
Thou askest me if I could speak of love,
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 woe, 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]
Even for thy woes I love thee—even for thy woes—
Thy beauty and thy woes.

Lalage 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?
Politian 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:
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 perchance—
Lalage Why dost thou pause, Politian?
Politian And then perchance
Arise together, Lalage, and roam
The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,
And still—
Lalage Why dost thou pause, Politian?
Politian And still together—together.
Lalage Now, Earl of Leicester!
Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts
I feel thou lovest me truly.
Politian O Lalage!
[throwing himself upon his knee.]

And lovest thou me?
Lalage Hist! hush! within the gloom
Of yonder trees methought a figure passed—
A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless—
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!
Politian My Lalage—my love! why art thou moved?
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.
Lalage 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 sunshine,—
And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,
And mountains, around whose towering summits the
winds
Of Heaven untrammelled flow—which air to breathe
Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter
In days that are to come?
Politian Oh, wilt thou—wilt thou
Fly to that Paradise—my Lalage, wilt thou
Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,
And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.
And life 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

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?
Lalage A deed is to be done—
Castiglione lives!
Politian And he shall die!
[Exit]
Lalage (after a And—he—shall—die!—alas!
pause) Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?
Where am I?—what was it he said?—Politian!
Thou art not gone—thou art not gone, Politian!
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—oh, 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—
Oh, speak to me! I knew thou wouldst not go!
I 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, 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!

V
The Suburbs. POLITIAN alone.
Politian This weakness grows upon me. I am fain
And much I 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, oh, pity me!

Oh, 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.
Politian 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?
Baldazzar That he, Castiglione, not being aware
Of any feud existing, or any cause
Of quarrel between your lordship and himself,
Cannot accept the challenge.
Politian 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?
Baldazzar No more, my lord, than I have told you:
The Count Castiglione will not fight.
Having no cause for quarrel.
Politian 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 pr'ythee, say
Unto the Count—it is exceeding just
He should have cause for quarrel.
Baldazzar My lord!—my friend!—

Politian (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 pr'ythee, leave me—hither doth come a person
With whom affairs of a most private nature
I would adjust.
Baldazzar I go—to-morrow we meet,
Do we not?—at the Vatican.
Politian At the Vatican.
[Exit Baldazzar]
[Enter Castiglione]
Castiglione The Earl of Leicester here!
Politian I am the Earl of Leicester, and thou seest,
Dost thou not, that I am here?
Castiglione My lord, some strange,
Some singular mistake—misunderstanding—
Hath without doubt arisen: thou hast been 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 offence. Ha!—am I right?
'Twas a mistake?—undoubtedly—we all
Do err at times.
Politian Draw, villain, and prate no more!
Castiglione Ha!—draw?—and villain? have at thee then at once,
Proud Earl!
[Draws.]
Politian Thus to the expiatory tomb,
Untimely sepulchre, I do devote thee
In the name of Lalage!

Castiglione Of Lalage!
(letting fall his Hold off—thy sacred hand!—avaunt, I say!
sword and Avaunt—I will not fight thee—indeed I dare not.
recoiling
to the extremity of
the stage)
Politian 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!
Castiglione 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.
Politian Now, by my halidom,
I do believe thee!—coward, I do believe thee!
Castiglione 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
I am the veriest coward. Oh, pity me!
Politian (greatly Alas!—I do—indeed I pity thee.
softened)
Castiglione And Lalage—
Politian Scoundrel!—arise and die!
Castiglione It needeth not be—thus—thus—Oh, 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 or hindrance to thy weapon—
Strike home. I will not fight thee.
Politian 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—
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?
Thou liest! thou shalt!
[Exit]
Castiglione Now this indeed is just!
Most righteous, and most just, avenging Heaven!

Footnote 1: By Sir Thomas Wyatt.—Ed.
return

Note on Politian
Such portions of "Politian" as are known to the public first saw the light of
publicity in the Southern Literary Messenger for December 1835 and
January 1836, being styled "Scenes from Politian; an unpublished drama."
These scenes were included, unaltered, in the 1845 collection of Poems by
Poe. The larger portion of the original draft subsequently became the
property of the present editor, but it is not considered just to the poet's
memory to publish it. The work is a hasty and unrevised production of its
author's earlier days of literary labor; and, beyond the scenes already known,
scarcely calculated to enhance his reputation. As a specimen, however, of the
parts unpublished, the following fragment from the first scene of Act II. may
be offered. The Duke, it should be premised, is uncle to Alessandra, and
father of Castiglione her betrothed.
Duke Why do you laugh?

Castiglione Indeed.
I hardly know myself. Stay! Was it not
On yesterday we were speaking of the Earl?
Of the Earl Politian? Yes! it was yesterday.
Alessandra, you and I, you must remember!
We were walking in the garden.
Duke Perfectly.
I do remember it—what of it—what then?
Castiglione O nothing—nothing at all.
Duke Nothing at all!
It is most singular that you should laugh
At nothing at all!
Castiglione Most singular—singular!
Duke Look yon, Castiglione, be so kind
As tell me, sir, at once what 'tis you mean.
What are you talking of?
Castiglione Was it not so?
We differed in opinion touching him.
Duke Him!—Whom?
Castiglione Why, sir, the Earl Politian.
Duke The Earl of Leicester! Yes!—is it he you mean?
We differed, indeed. If I now recollect
The words you used were that the Earl you knew
Was neither learned nor mirthful.
Castiglione Ha! ha!—now did I?
Duke That did you, sir, and well I knew at the time
You were wrong, it being not the character
Of the Earl—whom all the world allows to be
A most hilarious man. Be not, my son,
Too positive again.
Castiglione 'Tis singular!
Most singular! I could not think it possible
So little time could so much alter one!
To say the truth about an hour ago,
As I was walking with the Count San Ozzo,
All arm in arm, we met this very man

The Earl—he, with his friend Baldazzar,
Having just arrived in Rome. Ha! ha! he is altered!
Such an account he gave me of his journey!
'Twould have made you die with laughter—such tales he told
Of his caprices and his merry freaks
Along the road—such oddity—such humor—
Such wit—such whim—such flashes of wild merriment
Set off too in such full relief by the grave
Demeanor of his friend—who, to speak the truth
Was gravity itself—
Duke Did I not tell you?
Castiglione You did—and yet 'tis strange! but true, as strange,
How much I was mistaken! I always thought
The Earl a gloomy man.
Duke So, so, you see!
Be not too positive. Whom have we here?
It cannot be the Earl?
Castiglione The Earl! Oh no!
Tis not the Earl—but yet it is—and leaning
Upon his friend Baldazzar. Ah! welcome, sir!
[Enter Politian and Baldazzar.]
My lord, a second welcome let me give you
To Rome—his Grace the Duke of Broglio.
Father! this is the Earl Politian, Earl
Of Leicester in Great Britain.
[Politian bows haughtily.]
That, his friend
Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. The Earl has letters,
So please you, for Your Grace.
Duke Ha! ha! Most welcome
To Rome and to our palace, Earl Politian!
And you, most noble Duke! I am glad to see you!
I knew your father well, my Lord Politian.
Castiglione! call your cousin hither,
And let me make the noble Earl acquainted
With your betrothed. You come, sir, at a time
Most seasonable. The wedding—

Politian Touching those letters, sir,
Your son made mention of—your son, is he not?—
Touching those letters, sir, I wot not of them.
If such there be, my friend Baldazzar here—
Baldazzar! ah!—my friend Baldazzar here
Will hand them to Your Grace. I would retire.
Duke Retire!—so soon?
Castiglione What ho! Benito! Rupert!
His lordship's chambers—show his lordship to them!
His lordship is unwell.
[Enter Benito]
Benito This way, my lord!
[Exit, followed by Politian.]
Duke Retire! Unwell!
Baldazzar So please you, sir. I fear me
'Tis as you say—his lordship is unwell.
The damp air of the evening—the fatigue
Of a long journey—the—indeed I had better
Follow his lordship. He must be unwell.
I will return anon.
Duke Return anon!
Now this is very strange! Castiglione!
This way, my son, I wish to speak with thee.
You surely were mistaken in what you said
Of the Earl, mirthful, indeed!—which of us said
Politian was a melancholy man?
[Exeunt.]

Poems of Youth

Introduction (1831)
Letter to Mr. B——

West Point, 1831

Dear B——

...

Believing only a portion of my former volume to be worthy a second edition
—that small portion I thought it as well to include in the present book as to
republish by itself. I have therefore herein combined 'Al Aaraaf' and
'Tamerlane' with other poems hitherto unprinted. Nor have I hesitated to
insert from the 'Minor Poems,' now omitted, whole lines, and even passages,
to the end that being placed in a fairer light, and the trash shaken from them
in which they were imbedded, they may have some chance of being seen by
posterity.

"It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who
is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and mine of poetry, I feel to
be false—the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique, and the
converse. On this account, and because there are but few B——s in the
world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's good opinion as proud of
your own. Another than yourself might here observe, 'Shakespeare is in
possession of the world's good opinion, and yet Shakespeare is the greatest
of poets. It appears then that the world judge correctly, why should you be
ashamed of their favorable judgment?' The difficulty lies in the interpretation
of the word 'judgment' or 'opinion.' The opinion is the world's, truly, but it

may be called theirs as a man would call a book his, having bought it; he did
not write the book, but it is his; they did not originate the opinion, but it is
theirs. A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet—yet the fool has
never read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a step higher on the
Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say, his more exalted thought) is
too far above the fool to be seen or understood, but whose feet (by which I
mean his every-day actions) are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by
means of which that superiority is ascertained, which but for them would
never have been discovered—this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a
great poet—the fool believes him, and it is henceforward his opinion. This
neighbor's own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above
him, and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the
summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the
pinnacle.

"You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He is
read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of the world.
I say established; for it is with literature as with law or empire—an
established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession. Besides,
one might suppose that books, like their authors, improve by travel—their
having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a distinction. Our antiquaries
abandon time for distance; our very fops glance from the binding to the
bottom of the title-page, where the mystic characters which spell London,
Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many letters of recommendation.

"I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think the notion
that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is another. I
remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would be the justice
of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I grant, make a false
critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his
favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a
just critique; whatever should be deducted on the score of self-love might be
replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the subject; in short,
we have more instances of false criticism than of just where one's own
writings are the test, simply because we have more bad poets than good.
There are, of course, many objections to what I say: Milton is a great
example of the contrary; but his opinion with respect to the 'Paradise
Regained' is by no means fairly ascertained. By what trivial circumstances

men are often led to assert what they do not really believe! Perhaps an
inadvertent word has descended to posterity. But, in fact, the 'Paradise
Regained' is little, if at all, inferior to the 'Paradise Lost,' and is only
supposed so to be because men do not like epics, whatever they may say to
the contrary, and reading those of Milton in their natural order, are too much
wearied with the first to derive any pleasure from the second.

"I dare say Milton preferred 'Comus' to either —if so—justly.

"As I am speaking of poetry, it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon the
most singular heresy in its modern history—the heresy of what is called,
very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have been induced,
by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal refutation of their
doctrine; at present it would be a work of supererogation. The wise must
bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge and Southey, but being wise,
have laughed at poetical theories so prosaically exemplified.

"Aristotle, with singular assurance, has declared poetry the most
philosophical of all writings—but it required a Wordsworth to pronounce it
the most metaphysical. He seems to think that the end of poetry is, or should
be, instruction; yet it is a truism that the end of our existence is happiness; if
so, the end of every separate part of our existence, everything connected
with our existence, should be still happiness. Therefore the end of instruction
should be happiness; and happiness is another name for pleasure;—therefore
the end of instruction should be pleasure: yet we see the above-mentioned
opinion implies precisely the reverse.

"To proceed: ceteris paribus, he who pleases is of more importance to his
fellow-men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and pleasure is
the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means of obtaining.

"I see no reason, then, why our metaphysical poets should plume themselves
so much on the utility of their works, unless indeed they refer to instruction
with eternity in view; in which case, sincere respect for their piety would not
allow me to express my contempt for their judgment; contempt which it
would be difficult to conceal, since their writings are professedly to be
understood by the few, and it is the many who stand in need of salvation. In
such case I should no doubt be tempted to think of the devil in 'Melmoth,'

who labors indefatigably, through three octavo volumes, to accomplish the
destruction of one or two souls, while any common devil would have
demolished one or two thousand.

"Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study—not a passion—it
becomes the metaphysician to reason—but the poet to protest. Yet
Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued in
contemplation from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and learning.
The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their authority would
be overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my heart, that learning
has little to do with the imagination—intellect with the passions—or age
with poetry. "'Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below,' "are lines which have
done much mischief. As regards the greater truths, men oftener err by
seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth lies in the huge abysses
where wisdom is sought—not in the palpable palaces where she is found.
The ancients were not always right in hiding the goddess in a well; witness
the light which Bacon has thrown upon philosophy; witness the principles of
our divine faith—that moral mechanism by which the simplicity of a child
may overbalance the wisdom of a man.

"We see an instance of Coleridge's liability to err, in his Biographia Literaria
—professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact, a treatise de omni
scibili et quibusdam aliis. He goes wrong by reason of his very profundity,
and of his error we have a natural type in the contemplation of a star. He
who regards it directly and intensely sees, it is true, the star, but it is the star
without a ray—while he who surveys it less inquisitively is conscious of all
for which the star is useful to us below—its brilliancy and its beauty.

"As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had in youth the feelings
of a poet I believe—for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in his
writings—(and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom—his El Dorado)—but
they have the appearance of a better day recollected; and glimpses, at best,
are little evidence of present poetic fire; we know that a few straggling
flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the glacier.

"He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end
of poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light

which should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently
is too correct. This may not be understood,—but the old Goths of Germany
would have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their
State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober—sober that they might
not be deficient in formality—drunk lest they should be destitute of vigor.

"The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration
of his poetry, speak very little in his favor: they are full of such assertions as
this (I have opened one of his volumes at random)—'Of genius the only
proof is the act of doing well what is worthy to be done, and what was never
done before;'—indeed? then it follows that in doing what is unworthy to be
done, or what has been done before, no genius can be evinced; yet the
picking of pockets is an unworthy act, pockets have been picked time
immemorial, and Barrington, the pick-pocket, in point of genius, would have
thought hard of a comparison with William Wordsworth, the poet.

"Again, in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian's or
Macpherson's can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to prove their
worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the controversy. Tantæne
animis? Can great minds descend to such absurdity? But worse still: that he
may bear down every argument in favor of these poems, he triumphantly
drags forward a passage, in his abomination with which he expects the
reader to sympathise. It is the beginning of the epic poem 'Temora.' 'The blue
waves of Ullin roll in light; the green hills are covered with day; trees shake
their dusty heads in the breeze.' And this—this gorgeous, yet simple imagery,
where all is alive and panting with immortality—this, William Wordsworth,
the author of 'Peter Bell,' has selected for his contempt. We shall see what
better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis: "'And now she's at the
pony's tail,
And now she's at the pony's head,
On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss,
A few sad tears does Betty shed....
She pats the pony, where or when
She knows not ... happy Betty Foy!
Oh, Johnny, never mind the doctor!' "Secondly: "'The dew was falling fast,
the—stars began to blink;
I heard a voice: it said,—"Drink, pretty creature, drink!"

And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied
A snow-white mountain lamb, with a maiden at its side.
No other sheep was near, the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was tether'd to a stone.' "Now, we have no doubt this
is all true: we will believe it, indeed we will, Mr, W. Is it sympathy for the
sheep you wish to excite? I love a sheep from the bottom of my heart. "But
there are occasions, dear B——, there are occasions when even Wordsworth
is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and the most
unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an extract from his
preface: "'Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modern
writers, if they persist in reading this book to a conclusion (impossible!) will,
no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they
will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will be induced to inquire by
what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to assume that
title.' Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! "Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given
immortality to a wagon, and the bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a
sore toe, and dignified a tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.

"Of Coleridge, I cannot speak but with reverence. His towering intellect! his
gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, 'J'ai trouvé souvent que
la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce qu'elles
avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient;' and to employ his own
language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he has
erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind
should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume
upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry, I tremble like one who
stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very darkness bursting from the
crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below.

"What is Poetry?—Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations
as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of a scholar some time
ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.' 'Très-volontiers;' and he proceeded to
his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a
definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the
scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major.
Think of poetry, dear B——, think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel
Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is
hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then—and

then think of the 'Tempest'—the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'— Prospero—
Oberon—and Titania!

"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its
immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for its object,
an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this
object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite,
poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since
the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music,
when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is
simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very
definitiveness.

"What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his
soul?

"To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B——, what you, no doubt,
perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign contempt.
That they have followers proves nothing: "'No Indian prince has to his
palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.'"

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 jewelled 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?
1829

Note

Private reasons—some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism,
and others to the date of Tennyson's first poems1—have induced me, after
some hesitation, 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. (1845).

Footnote 1: This refers to the accusation brought against Edgar Poe that he
was a copyist of Tennyson.—Ed.
return

Al Aaraf1

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—
O! 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 soul—
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,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God—
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre—leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves 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 Deucato2, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of—deep pride—
Of her who lov'd a mortal—and so died3.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd4—
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
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 Clytia5 pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth6—
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 flown7
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante8!
Isola d'oro!—Fior di Levante!
And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever9
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:10

"Spirit! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie!
Beyond the line of blue—
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?
Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream'd for thy Infinity
A model of their own11—
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 Fantasy12,
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
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
"Silence"—which is the merest word of all.

All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from the 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 run13,
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 night14,
And wing to other worlds another light!
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle—and so be
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 downy 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 Therasæan reign15.
II High on a mountain of enamell'd head—
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, 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 ether, 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 fall16
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die—
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 architrave—
And every sculptured 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 Persepolis17—
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, the wave18
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 Eyraco19,
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 cloud—
Is not its form—its voice—most palpable and loud?20
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;
The zone that clung around her gentle waist
Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
Within the centre 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 melody21
To happy flowers that night—and tree to tree;
Fountains were gushing music as they fell
In many a star-lit grove, or moon-light 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—22
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half-closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
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'd ye 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—
O! 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,23
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
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 springs24
From the growing of grass
Are the music of things—
But are modell'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 enjewel its breast—
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid—
Some have left the cool glade, and
Have slept with the bee—25
Arouse them, my maiden,
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 wing, 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—ev'n with us the breath
Of Science dims the mirror of our joy—
To them 'twere the Simoom, 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—
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!26

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."27

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 wo)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo—
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sate he with his love—his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament:
Now turn'd it upon her—but ever then
It trembled to the orb of Earth again.

"Ianthe, 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 slumbered—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 called the Parthenon;28
More beauty clung around her columned wall
Then even thy glowing bosom beats withal,29
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!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wished to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee—
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness—and passionate love."
"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
Failed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft,30
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy—but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurled,
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,
And fell—not 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 Daedalion 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 unfurled
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 swelled upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
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 imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

1839

Footnote 1: A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared
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.
return to footnote mark

Footnote 2: On Santa Maura—olim Deucadia.
return

Footnote 3: Sappho.
return

Footnote 4: This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The
bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.
return

Footnote 5: Clytia—the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-
known term, the turnsol—which turns continually towards the sun, covers
itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which
cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.—B. de
St. Pierre.
return

Footnote 6: There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of
serpentine aloe without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a
strong odor of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very
short. It does not blow till towards the month of July—you then perceive it
gradually open its petals—expand them—fade and die.—St. Pierre.
return

Footnote 7: There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian
kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet—thus preserving
its head above water in the swellings of the river.
return

Footnote 8: The Hyacinth.
return

Footnote 9: It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in

one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves the cradle of his
childhood.
return

Footnote 10: And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the
saints.—Rev. St. John.
return

Footnote 11: The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as
having really a human form.—Vide Clarke's Sermons, vol. I, page 26, fol.
edit.

The drift of Milton's argument leads him to employ language which would
appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine; but it will be seen
immediately, that he guards himself against the charge of having adopted
one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the Church.—Dr.
Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine.

This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could never have
been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of Mesopotamia, was condemned for
the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the fourth century. His
disciples were called Anthropomorphites.—Vide du Pin.

Among Milton's minor poems are these lines: Dicite sacrorum præesides
nemorum Dese, etc.,
Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine
Natura solers finxit humanum genus?
Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,
Unusque et universus exemplar Dei. —And afterwards, Non cui profundum
Cæcitas lumen dedit
Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, etc. return

Footnote 12: Seltsamen Tochter Jovis
Seinem Schosskinde
Der Phantasie. Goethe.

return

Footnote 13: Sightless—too small to be seen.—Legge.
return

Footnote 14: I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies; they
will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre, into innumerable
radii.
return

Footnote 15: Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which,
in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners.
return

>Footnote 16: Some star which, from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance did fall. Milton.
return

Footnote 17: Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, "Je connais bien
l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines—mais un palais érigé au pied d'une
chaîne de rochers steriles—peut-il être un chef d'oeuvre des arts!" return

Footnote 18: "Oh, the wave"—Ula Deguisi is the Turkish appellation; but,
on its own shores, it is called Baliar Loth, or Al-motanah. There were
undoubtedly more than two cities engulphed in the "dead sea." In the valley
of Siddim were five—Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen
of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteen (engulphed) —but the last
is out of all reason. It is said (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba,
Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux), that after an excessive drought, the
vestiges of columns, walls, etc., are seen above the surface. At any season,
such remains may be discovered by looking down into the transparent lake,
and at such distance as would argue the existence of many settlements in the

space now usurped by the "Asphaltites."
return

Footnote 19: Eyraco-Chaldea.
return

Footnote 20: I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the
darkness as it stole over the horizon.
return

Footnote 21: Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Merry Wives of
Windsor.
return

Footnote 22: In Scripture is this passage: "The sun shall not harm thee by
day, nor the moon by night." It is, perhaps, not generally known that the
moon, in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep
with the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstances the passage
evidently alludes.
return

Footnote 23: The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.
return

Footnote 24: I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now
unable to obtain and quote from memory: "The verie essence and, as it were,
springe heade and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde
which the trees of the forest do make when they growe." return

Footnote 25: The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight.
The rhyme in the verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an appearance

of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from
Claud Halcro—in whose mouth I admired its effect: O! were there an island,
Tho' ever so wild,
Where woman might smile, and
No man be beguil'd, etc. return

Footnote 26: With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell,
where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even
happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment.
Un no rompido sueno—
Un dia puro—allegre—libre
Quiera—
Libre de amor—de zelo—
De odio—de esperanza—de rezelo. Luis Ponce de Leon.

Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the
living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles the
delirium of opium.

The passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon
intoxication are its less holy pleasures—the price of which, to those souls
who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after life, is final death
and annihilation.
return

Footnote 27: There be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon. Milton.
return

Footnote 28: It was entire in 1687—the most elevated spot in Athens.
return

Footnote 29: Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of love. Marlowe.

return

Footnote 30: Pennon, for pinion.—Milton.
return
Note

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 revelled in—
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—O 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
Bowed 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—
O 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.

I have not always been as now:
The fevered diadem on my brow
I claimed and won usurpingly—
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Cæsar—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 their dews upon my head,
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
Unsheltered—and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the 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 deemed since I have reached to power,
My innate nature—be it so:
But, father, there lived one who, then,
Then—in my boyhood—when their fire
Burned 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 in age—and love—together—
Roaming the forest, and the wild;
My breast her shield in wintry weather—
And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.

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 marked a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmured at such 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 walked together on the crown
Of a high mountain which looked 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
Seemed to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then,
And donned a visionary crown—
Yet it was not that Fantasy
Had thrown her mantle over me—
But that, among the rabble—men,
Lion ambition is chained down—
And crouches to a keeper's hand—
Not so in deserts where the grand—
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 diademed 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-withered plain,
And, failing 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 towered, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly—
And homeward turned his softened eye.
'Twas sunset: When the sun will part
There comes a sullenness of heart
To him who still would look upon
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—tho' 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 reached my home—my home no more—
For all had flown who made it so.
I passed 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,
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 trellised 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!
1829.

Note

To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn 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,
To 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, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
1831
Note

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
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
Unceasingly, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye—
Over the lilies 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.
1831
Note

Israfel1

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"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 enamoured 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 angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty—
Where Love's a grow-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,
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.
1836

Footnote 1: And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who
has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. Koran.
return to footnote mark
Note

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.
1829

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,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall—

Thy heart—thy heart!—I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day

Of the truth that gold can never buy—
Of the baubles that it may.
1829

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 brooks
Her worshipper 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.
1829

Song
I saw thee on thy bridal day—
When a burning blush came o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)
Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of 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.
1827

Spirits 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 that 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
As a 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 still—

And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
1837

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?
1837

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—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in 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
Though 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.
1829
Note

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 centre on the crown
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 thing!)

Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
1831

The Lake
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 the spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody—
Then—ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight—
A feeling not the jewelled 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.
1827

Evening Star
'Twas noontide of summer,
And midtime of night,
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, through the light
Of the brighter, cold moon.
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.

I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold—too cold for me—
There passed, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
1827

Imitation

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride—
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my wordly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
1827

"The Happiest Day"

I The happiest day—the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.
II Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been—
But let them pass.

III And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me—
Be still my spirit!
IV The happiest day—the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feel have been:
V But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev'n then I felt—that brightest hour
I would not live again:
VI For on its wing was dark alloy
And as it fluttered—fell
An essence—powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.

1827

Hymn (translation from the Greek
Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius

I Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal,
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.
II Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home—
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.

III In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny's blood.
IV Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!

1827

Dreams
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be—that dream eternally
Continuing—as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revelled when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,—have left my very heart
Inclines of my imaginary apart1
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?
'Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass—some power
Or spell had bound me—'twas the chilly wind

Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit—or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly—or the stars—howe'er it was
That dream was that that night-wind—let it pass.
I have been happy, though in a dream.
I have been happy—and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love—and all my own!—
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

Footnote 1: In climes of mine imagining apart?—Ed.
return

"In Youth I have Known One"

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!
I In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held—as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit—

And yet that spirit knew—not in the hour
Of its own fervor—what had o'er it power.
II Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a ferver1 by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told—or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o'er the summer grass?
III Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
To the loved object—so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be—(that object) hid
From us in life—but common—which doth lie
Each hour before us—but then only bid
With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
T' awake us—'Tis a symbol and a token—
IV Of what in other worlds shall be—and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
Though not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

Footnote 1: Query "fervor"?—Ed.
return

A Pæan

I How shall the burial rite be read?
The solemn song be sung?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
That ever died so young?
II Her friends are gazing on her,
And on her gaudy bier,
And weep!—oh! to dishonor
Dead beauty with a tear!
III They loved her for her wealth—
And they hated her for her pride—
But she grew in feeble health,
And they love her—that she died.
IV They tell me (while they speak
Of her "costly broider'd pall")
That my voice is growing weak—
That I should not sing at all—
V Or that my tone should be
Tun'd to such solemn song
So mournfully—so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride.—
VII Of the dead—dead who lies
All perfum'd there,
With the death upon her eyes.
And the life upon her hair.
VIII Thus on the coffin loud and long
I strike—the murmur sent
Through the gray chambers to my song,
Shall be the accompaniment.

IX Thou diedst in thy life's June—
But thou didst not die too fair:
Thou didst not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.
X From more than friends on earth,
Thy life and love are riven,
To join the untainted mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven.—
XI Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a Pæan of old days.

Notes

On the "Poems written in Youth" little comment is needed. This section
includes the pieces printed for the first volume of 1827 (which was
subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published
volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised
versions, and a few others collected from various sources.

Note on Al Aaraaf
"Al Aaraaf" first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in
1829, and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831,
however, this poem, its author's longest, was introduced by the following
twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in all subsequent collections:
Mysterious star!
Thou wert my dream
All a long summer night—
Be now my theme!
By this clear stream,
Of thee will I write;
Meantime from afar
Bathe me in light!

Thy world has not the dross of ours,
Yet all the beauty—all the flowers
That list our love or deck our bowers
In dreamy gardens, where do lie
Dreamy maidens all the day;
While the silver winds of Circassy
On violet couches faint away.
Little—oh! little dwells in thee
Like unto what on earth we see:

Beauty's eye is here the bluest
In the falsest and untruest—
On the sweetest air doth float
The most sad and solemn note—
If with thee be broken hearts,
Joy so peacefully departs,
That its echo still doth dwell,
Like the murmur in the shell.
Thou! thy truest type of grief
Is the gently falling leaf—
Thou! thy framing is so holy
Sorrow is not melancholy.

Note on Tamerlane
The earliest version of "Tamerlane" was included in the suppressed
volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now
published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and
improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the lines
being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at least.

Note on To Helen, The Valley of Unrest, Israfel etc.
"To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also "The Valley of
Unrest" (as "The Valley Nis"), "Israfel," and one or two others of the
youthful pieces.

Note on Romance
The poem styled "Romance" constituted the Preface of the 1829 volume,
but with the addition of the following lines: Succeeding years, too wild for
song,
Then rolled like tropic storms along,
Where, though the garish lights that fly
Dying along the troubled sky,
Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,
The blackness of the general Heaven,
That very blackness yet doth fling
Light on the lightning's silver wing.

For being an idle boy lang syne,
Who read Anacreon and drank wine,
I early found Anacreon rhymes
Were almost passionate sometimes—
And by strange alchemy of brain
His pleasures always turned to pain—
His naïveté to wild desire—
His wit to love—his wine to fire—
And so, being young and dipt in folly,
I fell in love with melancholy.

And used to throw my earthly rest
And quiet all away in jest—
I could not love except where Death
Was mingling his with Beauty's breath—
Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,
Were stalking between her and me.

...

But now my soul hath too much room—
Gone are the glory and the gloom—
The black hath mellow'd into gray,
And all the fires are fading away.

My draught of passion hath been deep—
I revell'd, and I now would sleep—
And after drunkenness of soul
Succeeds the glories of the bowl—
An idle longing night and day
To dream my very life away.

But dreams—of those who dream as I,
Aspiringly, are damned, and die:
Yet should I swear I mean alone,
By notes so very shrilly blown,
To break upon Time's monotone,
While yet my vapid joy and grief
Are tintless of the yellow leaf—
Why not an imp the greybeard hath,
Will shake his shadow in my path—
And e'en the greybeard will o'erlook
Connivingly my dreaming-book.

Doubtful Poems

Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I loved—I loved alone—
Thou—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
March 17, 1829
Note

To Isadore

I Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door—
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves—
Within thy snowy clasped hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land—
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!
II And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!
III Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold;
Now strangely clear thine image grows,
And olden memories
Are startled from their long repose
Like shadows on the silent snows
When suddenly the night-wind blows
Where quiet moonlight lies.
IV Like music heard in dreams,
Like strains of harps unknown,
Of birds for ever flown,—

Audible as the voice of streams
That murmur in some leafy dell,
I hear thy gentlest tone,
And Silence cometh with her spell
Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,
When tremulous in dreams I tell
My love to thee alone!
V In every valley heard,
Floating from tree to tree,
Less beautiful to me,
The music of the radiant bird,
Than artless accents such as thine
Whose echoes never flee!
Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:—
For uttered in thy tones benign
(Enchantress!) this rude name of mine
Doth seem a melody!

Note

The Village Street
In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.

Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,—
On the ocean's star-lit waters,

Where the winds a-weary die.

Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm's long branches
To the pavement bending o'er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.

With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night's irradiate queen.

Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas;
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.

Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
'Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!

Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.

Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past—
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.

Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered—
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.

Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night's first dream hath flown.

Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.

Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!
And, O soul, forget thy dreams! Note

The Forest Reverie
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of wo,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow—
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow—
The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale,
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow—
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died—
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,—

Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,—
The rare and radiant flowers of song! Note

Notes

Note on Alone
Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe,
and not included among his known writings, the lines entitled "Alone" have
the chief claim to our notice. Fac-simile copies of this piece had been in
possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication in
Scribner's Magazine for September 1875; but as proofs of the authorship
claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from publishing it as
requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced, and there is, at
present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us. "Alone" is stated to have
been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore lady (Mrs. Balderstone?),
on March 17th, 1829, and the fac-simile given in Scribner's is alleged to be
of his handwriting. If the calligraphy be Poe's, it is different in all essential
respects from all the many specimens known to us, and strongly resembles
that of the writer of the heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which
the contributor of the poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The
lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early
mannerisms yet made public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to
speak, "are not unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them."

Note on To Isadore etc.
Whilst Edgar Poe was editor of the Broadway Journal, some lines "To
Isadore" appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no
signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy
questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared, saying they were
by "A. Ide, junior." Two previous poems had appeared in the Broadway

Journal over the signature of "A. M. Ide," and whoever wrote them was
also the author of the lines "To Isadore." In order, doubtless, to give a show
of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his journal
over noms de plume, and as no other writings whatever can be traced to any
person bearing the name of "A. M. Ide," it is not impossible that the poems
now republished in this collection may be by the author of "The Raven."
Having been published without his usual elaborate revision, Poe may have
wished to hide his hasty work under an assumed name. The three pieces are
included in the present collection, so the reader can judge for himself what
pretensions they possess to be by the author of "The Raven."

Prose Poems

The Island of the Fay
"Nullus enim locus sine genio est."

Servius. "La musique," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux"1 which
in all our translations we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as if in
mockery of their spirit—"la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse de
lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins." He here confounds the
pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them.
No more than any other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete
enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise; and it is
only in common with other talents that it produces effects which may be
fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to
entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of
point, is doubtless the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the
most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition
in this form will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own
sake and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach
of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than does
music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness
experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who
would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold
that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only, but of life, in
any other form than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and
are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at war with the genius of the
scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the
waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and
the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,—I love to regard
these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and
sentient whole—a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect

and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose
meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose
life is eternity; whose thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is
knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of
ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the animalculæ which infest
the brain, a being which we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and
material, much in the same manner as these animalculæ must thus regard
us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every
hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that
space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of
the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for
the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies.
The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within a given surface to
include the greatest possible amount of matter; while the surfaces
themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than
could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it
any argument against bulk being an object with God that space itself is
infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it; and since we see
clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle—indeed, as
far as our judgments extend, the leading principle in the operations of
Deity, it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the
minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As
we find cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-
distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in
the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within
the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in
believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more
moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and
contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than
that he does not behold it in operation2.

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations
among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a tinge of
what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic. My
wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and often

solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a dim
deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright lake, has
been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and
gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman3 was it who said, in allusion to the
well known work of Zimmermann, that "la solitude est une belle chose;
mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose"?
The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity is a thing that does not
exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of
mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns
writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and
island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw myself upon
the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might
doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon it,
such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose the
verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply in its
course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no exit from
its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the
east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length
and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and continuously into
the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of
the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small
circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream.
So blended bank and shadow there,
That each seemed pendulous in air— so mirror-like was the glassy water,
that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the
emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include
in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I
observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all
one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the
eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was
short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were

lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure and
foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep
sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out the
heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro
of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with
wings4.

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade. A
sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things. The
trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude—wreathing
themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that conveyed ideas of
mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the
cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither
among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very
long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not, although over and all
about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shades of the trees fell
heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the
depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun
descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that
gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows
issued momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus
entombed.

This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I lost
myself forthwith in reverie. "If ever island were enchanted," said I to
myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from
the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?—or do they yield up
their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather
waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by little their existence, as
these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto
dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade,
growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be
to the death which engulfs it?"

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and
eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their
bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the sycamore, flakes

which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination
might have converted into anything it pleased; while I thus mused, it
appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had
been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at
the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe,
and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of
the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow
deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at
length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. "The revolution
which has just been made by the Fay," continued I musingly, "is the cycle of
the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her
summer. She is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she
came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the
dark water, making its blackness more black."

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the latter
there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated
again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently),
and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became
absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the
island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into
the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and
far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell
from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black.
But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere
ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region
of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for
darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.

Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is
"fashionable," or, more strictly, "of manners."
return to footnote mark

Footnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise, De Sitû
Orbis, says, "Either the world is a great animal, or," etc. return

Footnote 3: Balzac, in substance; I do not remember the words.
return

Footnote 4: "Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera." P. Commire.
return

The Power of Words
Oinos. Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
immortality!
Agathos. You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be
demanded. Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For
wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!
Oinos. But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once
cognizant of all things, and thus at once happy in being
cognizant of all.
Agathos. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to
know all, were the curse of a fiend.
Oinos. But does not The Most High know all?
Agathos. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one thing
unknown even to Him.
Oinos. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all
things be known?
Agathos. Look down into the abysmal distances! —attempt to force the
gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep
slowly through them thus—and thus—and thus! Even the
spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous

golden walls of the universe?—the walls of the myriads of the
shining bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into
unity?
Oinos. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.
Agathos. There are no dreams in Aidenn—but it is here whispered that, of
this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford infinite
springs at which the soul may allay the thirst to know which is
forever unquenchable within it—since to quench it would be to
extinguish the soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely
and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud
harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne
into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and
violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-
tinted suns.
Oinos. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!—speak to me in
the earth's familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to
me just now of the modes or of the methods of what during
mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to
say that the Creator is not God?
Agathos. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.
Oinos. Explain
Agathos. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which
are now throughout the universe so perpetually springing into
being can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as
the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.
Oinos. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered
heretical in the extreme.
Agathos. Among the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.
Oinos. I can comprehend you thus far—that certain operations of what
we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain
conditions, give rise to that which has all the appearance of
creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there
were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in
what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the
creation of animalculæ.

Agathos. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the
secondary creation, and of the only species of creation which
has ever been since the first word spoke into existence the first
law.
Oinos. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst
hourly forth into the heavens—are not these stars, Agathos, the
immediate handiwork of the King?
Agathos. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the
conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can
perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands,
for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so
doing we gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it.
This vibration was indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to
every particle of the earth's air, which thenceforward, and
forever, was actuated by the one movement of the hand. This
fact the mathematicians of our globe well knew. They made the
special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses,
the subject of exact calculation—so that it became easy to
determine in what precise period an impulse of given extent
would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the
atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no
difficulty; from a given effect, under given conditions, in
determining the value of the original impulse. Now the
mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse
were absolutely endless—and who saw that a portion of these
results were accurately traceable through the agency of
algebraic analysis—who saw, too, the facility of the
retrogradation—these men saw, at the same time, that this
species of analysis itself had within itself a capacity for
indefinite progress—that there were no bounds conceivable to
its advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of
him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our
mathematicians paused.
Oinos. And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?
Agathos. Because there were some considerations of deep interest
beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being
of infinite understanding—one to whom the perfection of the

algebraic analysis lay unfolded—there could be no difficulty in
tracing every impulse given the air—and the ether through the
air—to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote
epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse
given the air, must in the end impress every individual thing
that exists within the universe;— and the being of infinite
understanding—the being whom we have imagined—might
trace the remote undulations of the impulse—trace them upward
and onward in their influences upon all particles of all matter—
upward and onward forever in their modifications of old forms
—or, in other words, in their creation of new—until he found
them reflected—unimpressive at last—back from the throne of
the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this, but at
any epoch, should a given result be afforded him—should one
of these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his
inspection—he could have no difficulty in determining, by the
analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due.
This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and
perfection—this faculty of referring at all epochs, all effects to
all causes—is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone—but
in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is
the power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic
Intelligences.
Oinos. But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.
Agathos. In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the
general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether—
which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus
the great medium of creation.
Oinos. Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?
Agathos. It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of
all motion is thought —and the source of all thought is—
Oinos. God.
Agathos. I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth
which lately perished—of impulses upon the atmosphere of the
earth.
Oinos. You did.

Agathos. And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some
thought of the physical power of words? Is not every word an
impulse on the air?
Oinos. But why, Agathos, do you weep—and why, oh, why do your
wings droop as we hover above this fair star—which is the
greenest and yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our
flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream —but its
fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.
Agathos. They are!—they are!—This wild star —it is now three
centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at
the feet of my beloved —I spoke it—with a few passionate
sentences—into birth. Its brilliant flowers are the dearest of all
unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes are the passions of
the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts!

The Colloquy of Monos and Una

These things are in the future.

Sophocles—Antig.
Una. "Born again?"
Monos. Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." These were the
words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered,
rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself
resolved for me the secret.
Una. Death!
Monos. How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I observe, too, a
vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are
confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life

Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly
sounds that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all
hearts, throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!
Una. Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often,
Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature!
How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss, saying
unto it, "thus far, and no farther!" That earnest mutual love, my
own Monos, which burned within our bosoms, how vainly did we
flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first upspringing that our
happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas, as it grew, so
grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying
to separate us forever! Thus in time it became painful to love.
Hate would have been mercy then.
Monos. Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una —mine, mine forever
now!
Una. But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much
to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to
know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley
and Shadow.
Monos. And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in
vain? I will be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the
weird narrative begin?
Una. At what point?
Monos. You have said.
Una. Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then,
commence with the moment of life's cessation—but commence
with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you,
you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed
down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.
Monos. One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general condition at
this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among
our forefathers—wise in fact, although not in the world's esteem
—had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term
"improvement," as applied to the progress of our civilization.
There were periods in each of the five or six centuries

immediately preceding our dissolution when arose some vigorous
intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth
appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious —
principles which should have taught our race to submit to the
guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At
long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each
advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility.
Occasionally the poetic intellect—that intellect which we now
feel to have been the most exalted of all—since those truths
which to us were of the most enduring importance could only be
reached by that analogy which speaks in proof-tones to the
imagination alone, and to the unaided reason bears no weight—
occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the
evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in the
mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and of its
forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation that
knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his
soul. And these men —the poets—living and perishing amid the
scorn of the "utilitarians"—of rough pedants, who arrogated to
themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to
the scorned—these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not
unwisely, upon the ancient days when our wants were not more
simple than our enjoyments were keen—days when mirth was a
word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was happiness—holy,
august, and blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed, between
hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and
unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule
served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen
upon the most evil of all our evil days. The great "movement" —
that was the cant term—went on: a diseased commotion, moral
and physical. Art—the Arts— arose supreme, and once
enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them
to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the
majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and
still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he
stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over
him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he

grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped
himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal
equality gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of God—
in despite of the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so
visibly pervading all things in Earth and Heaven—wild attempts
at an omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang
necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not
both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose,
innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of
furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the
ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una,
even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched
might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had
worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or
rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in
truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone—that faculty which,
holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the
moral sense, could never safely have been disregarded—it was
now that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to
Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and

majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the which he
justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for the soul! Alas for
him and for it!—since both were most desperately needed, when
both were most entirely forgotten or despised1. Pascal, a
philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly!—"Que tout
notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au sentiment;" and it is not
impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time permitted
it, would have regained its old ascendency over the harsh
mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be.
Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old age
of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or,
living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for
myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin
as the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of
our Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with
Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more

crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history
of these regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual
artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth,
and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies
applied; but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no
regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not
become extinct, I saw that he must be "born again."

And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits,
daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of
the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth,
having undergone that purification which alone could efface its
rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure
and the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and
be rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for man:—for man the
Death-purged—for man to whose now exalted intellect there
should be poison in knowledge no more —for the redeemed,
regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for the material,
man.
Una. Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the
epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we
believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant us
in believing. Men lived; and died individually. You yourself
sickened, and passed into the grave; and thither your constant
Una speedily followed you. And though the century which has
since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up together once
more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience of
duration, yet my Monos, it was a century still.
Monos. Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was
in the Earth's dotage that I died. Wearied at heart with anxieties
which had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I
succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few days of pain, and
many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the manifestations
of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but was impotent
to undeceive you—after some days there came upon me, as you
have said, a breathless and motionless torpor; and this was
termed Death by those who stood around me.

Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of
sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme
quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly,
lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon,
begins to steal slowly back into consciousness, through the mere
sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by external
disturbances.

I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased
to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses
were unusually active, although eccentrically so—assuming often
each other's functions at random. The taste and the smell were
inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal
and intense. The rose-water with which your tenderness had
moistened my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of
flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old
Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us.
The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete
impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls
could not roll in their sockets—but all objects within the range of
the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness;
the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of
the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck
the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance, this effect
was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as sound— sound
sweet or discordant as the matters presenting themselves at my
side were light or dark in shade —curved or angular in outline.
The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree, was
not irregular in action—estimating real sounds with an
extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had
undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were
tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted always
in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet
fingers upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision,
at length, long after their removal, filled my whole being with a
sensual delight immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. All

my perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the
passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree wrought
into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain there was
some little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain or
pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with
all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every
variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no
more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the
sorrows which gave them birth; while large and constant tears
which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which
broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And
this was in truth the Death of which these bystanders spoke
reverently, in low whispers—you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with
loud cries.

They attired me for the coffin—three or four dark figures which
flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my
vision they affected me as forms; but upon passing to my side
their images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and,
other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You
alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically
about.

The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed
by a vague uneasiness—an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when
sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear—low distant bell-
tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with
melancholy dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy
discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some
dull weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound,
not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous,
which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in strength
with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into the rooms,
and this reverberation became forthwith interrupted into frequent
unequal bursts of the same sound, but less dreary and less
distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a great measure
relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp (for there were

many), there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain of
melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the
bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side,
breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my
brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and mingling
with the merely physical sensations which circumstances had
called forth, a something akin to sentiment itself— a feeling that,
half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and sorrow;
but this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed
indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away,
first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual
pleasure as before.

And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there
appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its
exercise I found a wild delight—yet a delight still physical,
inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the
animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve
thrilled; no artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up
in the brain that of which no words could convey to the merely
human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term it
a mental pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of
man's abstract idea of Time. By the absolute equalization of this
movement—or of such as this—had the cycles of the firmamental
orbs themselves been adjusted. By its aid I measured the
irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches of
the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. The
slightest deviations from the true proportion—and these
deviations were omniprevalent—affected me just as violations of
abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense.
Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the
individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in
holding steadily in mind the tones, and the respective momentary
errors of each. And this—this keen, perfect self-existing
sentiment of duration—this sentiment existing (as man could not
possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of any
succession of events—this idea —this sixth sense, upspringing

from the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step
of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of the temporal eternity.

It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had
departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in
the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the
tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But suddenly these
strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they
ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my
vision no longer. The oppression of the Darkness uplifted itself
from my bosom. A dull shot like that of electricity pervaded my
frame, and was followed by total loss of the idea of contact. All
of what man has termed sense was merged in the sole
consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of
duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the
hand of the deadly Decay.

Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and
the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a
lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in
operation upon the flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware
of the bodily presence of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una,
I still dully felt that you sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of
the second day came, I was not unconscious of those movements
which displaced you from my side, which confined me within the
coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which bore me to
the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped heavily the
mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness and
corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.

And here in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose,
there rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul
watched narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort,
took record of its flight—without effort and without object.

A year passed. The consciousness of being had grown hourly
more indistinct, and that of mere locality had in great measure

usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in
that of place. The narrow space immediately surrounding what
had been the body was now growing to be the body itself. At
length, as often happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world
alone is Death imaged) —at length, as sometimes happened on
Earth to the deep slumberer, when some flitting light half startled
him into awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams—so to
me, in the strict embrace of the Shadow, came that light which
alone might have had power to startle—the light of enduring
Love. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay darkling. They
upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there
descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void. That
nebulous light had been extinguished. That feeble thrill had
vibrated itself into quiescence. Many lustra had supervened. Dust
had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of
being had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead
— instead of all things, dominant and perpetual—the autocrats
Place and Time. For that which was not—for that which had no
form—for that which had no thought—for that which had no
sentience—for that which was soundless, yet of which matter
formed no portion—for all this nothingness, yet for all this
immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours,
co-mates.

Footnote 1: "It will be hard to discover a better [method of education]
than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and
this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and music
for the soul." Repub. lib. 2. "For this reason is a musical education most
essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately
into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with beauty and
making the man beautiful-minded. ... He will praise and admire the
beautiful, will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it, and
assimilate his own condition with it." Ibid. lib. 3. Music had, however,
among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us.

It included not only the harmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic
diction, sentiment and creation, each in its widest sense. The study of music
was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste—of that which
recognizes the beautiful—in contradistinction from reason, which deals
only with the true.
return to footnote mark

The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
I will bring fire to thee.

Euripides.—Androm.
Eiros. Why do you call me Eiros?
Charmion. So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget,
too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.
Eiros. This is indeed no dream!
Charmion. Dreams are with us no more;—but of these mysteries anon. I
rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of
the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of
heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have
expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you into the full
joys and wonders of your novel existence.
Eiros. True—I feel no stupor—none at all. The wild sickness and the
terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
rushing, horrible sound, like the "voice of many waters." Yet
my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of
their perception of the new.
Charmion. A few days will remove all this;— but I fully understand you,
and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent
what you undergo—yet the remembrance of it hangs by me
still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you
will suffer in Aidenn.
Eiros. In Aidenn?

Charmion. In Aidenn.
Eiros. O God!—pity me, Charmion!—I am overburthened with the
majesty of all things—of the unknown now known—of the
speculative Future merged in the august and certain Present.
Charmion. Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will
speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find
relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around,
nor forward—but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the
details of that stupendous event which threw you among us.
Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, in the old
familiar language of the world which has so fearfully
perished.
Eiros. Most fearfully, fearfully!—this is indeed no dream.
Charmion. Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?
Eiros. Mourned, Charmion?—oh, deeply. To that last hour of all
there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over
your household.
Charmion. And that last hour—speak of it. Remember that, beyond the
naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When,
coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through
the Grave—at that period, if I remember aright, the calamity
which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But,
indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day.
Eiros. The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely
unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a
subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you,
my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed to
understand those passages in the most holy writings which
speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as having
reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in regard to the
immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault
from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the
comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very
moderate density of these bodies had been well established.
They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter
without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the

masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had
long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of
inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing
injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact.
But contact was not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of
all the comets were accurately known. That among them we
should look for the agency of the threatened fiery destruction
had been for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But
wonders and wild fancies had been of late days strangely rife
among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of the
ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the
announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this
announcement was generally received with I know not what
of agitation and mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated,
and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at
perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with the
earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary note
who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I
cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence
upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe
an assertion which their intellect, so long employed among
worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But
the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into
the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men
saw that astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited
the comet. Its approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor
was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a dull
red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight days we
saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a
partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of
men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in a growing
discussion instituted by the philosophic in respect to the
cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused their
sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned now
gave their intellect—their soul—to no such points as the

allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They
sought—they panted for right views. They groaned for
perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength
and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.

That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would
result from the apprehended contact was an opinion which
hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were now
freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd.
It was demonstrated that the density of the comet's nucleus
was far less than that of our rarest gas; and the harmless
passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was
a point strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to
allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness fear-enkindled,
dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them to
the people with a directness and simplicity of which no
previous instance had been known. That the final destruction
of the earth must be brought about by the agency of fire, was
urged with a spirit that enforced everywhere conviction; and
that the comets were of no fiery nature (as all men now knew)
was a truth which relieved all, in a great measure, from the
apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is noticeable
that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to
pestilences and wars—errors which were wont to prevail upon
every appearance of a comet—were now altogether unknown,
as if by some sudden convulsive exertion reason had at once
hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had
derived vigor from excessive interest.

What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of
elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological
disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and
consequently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and electric
influences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect
would in any manner be produced. While such discussions
were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing
larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre.

Mankind grew paler as it came. All human operations were
suspended.

There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment
when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that
of any previously recorded visitation. The people now,
dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were
wrong, experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical
aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of
our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few days
suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in sentiments
more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange
orb any accustomed thoughts. Its historical attributes had
disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of
emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the
heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts and a shadow
upon our brains. It had taken, with unconceivable rapidity, the
character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame, extending from
horizon to horizon.

Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear
that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we
lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity
of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was
apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through
it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we
gained faith, from this predicted circumstance, in the foresight
of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown
before, burst out upon every vegetable thing.

Yet another day—and the evil was not altogether upon us. It
was now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild
change had come over all men; and the first sense of pain was
the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. The first
sense of pain lay in a rigorous construction of the breast and
lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be
denied that our atmosphere was radically affected; the

conformation of this atmosphere and the possible
modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the
topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an
electric thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart
of man.

It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a
compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of
twenty-one measures of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen
in every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was
the principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was
absolutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was the
most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on the
contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal life or
flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had
been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits
as we had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the
extension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What
would be the result of a total extraction of the nitrogen? A
combustion irresistible, all-devouring, omni-prevalent,
immediate;— the entire fulfilment, in all their minute and
terrible details, of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations
of the prophecies of the Holy Book.

Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of
mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously
inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of
despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly
perceived the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again
passed—bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope. We
gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red blood
bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A furious
delirium possessed all men; and with arms rigidly
outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled
and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now
upon us;—even here in Aidenn I shudder while I speak. Let
me be brief—brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a

moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and
penetrating all things. Then—let us bow down, Charmion,
before the excessive majesty of the great God!—then, there
came a shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth
itself of Him; while the whole incumbent mass of ether in
which we existed, burst at once into a species of intense
flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even
the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no
name. Thus ended all.

Shadow — a Parable
Yea! though I walk through the valley of the Shadow.

Psalm of David.
Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long
since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things
shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass
away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be
some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to
ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

The year had been a year of terror, and of feeling more intense than terror
for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs
had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the
Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars,
it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the
Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that now had arrived the
alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the
entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the red ring of the
terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly,
made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the
souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.

Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble hall, in
a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of seven. And to
our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of brass: and the
door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare
workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise in the
gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the
peopleless streets—but the boding and the memory of Evil, they would not
be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I can
render no distinct account— things material and spiritual—heaviness in the
atmosphere— a sense of suffocation—anxiety—and, above all, that terrible
state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly
living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead
weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs—upon the household
furniture—upon the goblets from which we drank; and all things were
depressed, and borne down thereby—all things save only the flames of the
seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing themselves in tall
slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid and motionless;
and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at
which we sat each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own
countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions.
Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way—which was hysterical;
and sang the songs of Anacreon—which are madness; and drank deeply—
although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was yet another
tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead and at full length
he lay, enshrouded;—the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore
no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the plague,
and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the
pestilence, seemed to take such an interest in our merriment as the dead
may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die. But although I,
Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself
not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily
into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the
songs of the son of Teos. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their
echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber, became
weak, and undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those
sable draperies, where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a

dark and undefiled shadow—a shadow such as the moon, when low in
heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow
neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile
among the draperies of the room it at length rested in full view upon the
surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and
indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor God—neither God of
Greece, nor God of Chaldæa, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested
upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the door
and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and
remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I remember
aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the
seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among
the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and
gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length I,
Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and
its appellation. And the shadow answered, "I am Shadow, and my dwelling
is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of
Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then did we,
the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and
shuddering, and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not
the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying in their
cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well
remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends.

Silence — a Fable
The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags, and caves are silent.

"Listen to me," said the Demon, as he placed his hand upon my head. "The
region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the borders of the
river Zäire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.

"The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow not
onward to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the red eye of

the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles on either
side of the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies. They
sigh one unto the other in that solitude, and stretch towards the heaven their
long and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting heads. And
there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out from among them like the
rushing of subterrene water. And they sigh one unto the other.

"But there is a boundary to their realm—the boundary of the dark, horrible,
lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides, the low underwood is
agitated continually. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And the
tall primeval trees rock eternally hither and thither with a crashing and
mighty sound. And from their high summits, one by one, drop everlasting
dews. And at the roots, strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed
slumber. And overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray clouds rush
westwardly forever until they roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall of the
horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And by the shores of
the river Zäire there is neither quiet nor silence.

"It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it
was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell
upon my head—and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of
their desolation.

"And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and was
crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which stood by
the shore of the river and was lighted by the light of the moon. And the rock
was gray and ghastly, and tall,—and the rock was gray. Upon its front were
characters engraven in the stones; and I walked through the morass of
water-lilies, until I came close unto the shore, that I might read the
characters upon the stone. But I could not decipher them. And I was going
back into the morass when the moon shone with a fuller red, and I turned
and looked again upon the rock and upon the characters;—and the
characters were Desolation.

"And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the rock;
and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover the action of
the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and wrapped up from his

shoulders to his feet in the toga of old Rome. And the outlines of his figure
were indistinct—but his features were the features of a deity; for the mantle
of the night, and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left
uncovered the features of his face. And his brow was lofty with thought,
and his eye wild with care; and in the few furrows upon his cheek, I read
the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a
longing after solitude.

"And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and
looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low unquiet
shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher at the rustling
heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close within shelter of the
lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the
solitude;—but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.

"And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out upon the
dreary river Zäire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale
legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to the sighs of the water-
lilies, and to the murmur that came up from among them. And I lay close
within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man
trembled in the solitude;—but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.

"Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in
among the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami which
dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass. And the hippopotami
heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot of the rock, and
roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay close within my
covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the
solitude;—but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.

"Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a frightful
tempest gathered in the heaven, where before there had been no wind. And
the heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest—and the rain beat
upon the head of the man—and the floods of the river came down—and the
river was tormented into foam—and the water-lilies shrieked within their
beds—and the forest crumbled before the wind—and the thunder rolled —
and the lightning fell—and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay

close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man
trembled in the solitude;—but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.

"Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the river, and the
lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the thunder, and the
sighs of the water-lilies. And they became accursed, and were still. And the
moon ceased to totter up its pathway to heaven—and the thunder died away
—and the lightning did not flash—and the clouds hung motionless—and
the waters sunk to their level and remained—and the trees ceased to rock—
and the water-lilies sighed no more—and the murmur was heard no longer
from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast illimitable
desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and they were
changed;—and the characters were Silence.

"And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his countenance
was wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his head from his hand, and
stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there was no voice throughout
the vast illimitable desert, and the characters upon the rock were Silence.
And the man shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled afar off, in
haste, so that I beheld him no more."

...

Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound,
melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories of
the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty Sea—and of the Genii that
overruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much lore,
too, in the sayings which were said by the sybils; and holy, holy things were
heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around Dodona—but, as Allah
liveth, that fable which the demon told me as he sat by my side in the
shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all! And as the
Demon made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of the tomb
and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me
because I could not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb,
came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and looked at
him steadily in the face.

Essays

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 principal 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 impression.
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 hold that a long
poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a
flat contradiction in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it
excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this
elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity,
transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so
called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great
length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags—fails—a
revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, 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 impossibility 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 or impression—we read it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting,
the result is but a constant alternation of excitement 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 surprised 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 the 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 that the work is based in an imperfect sense of Art.
The modern epic is, of the supposititious 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 undoubtedly, 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 considered—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 estimating 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 us frankly commend him for the effort—if this
indeed be a thing commendable— but let us forbear praising the epic on the
effort's account. It is to be hoped thai common sense, in the 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 necessary in
effecting the impression. The fact 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 meantime, by being generally
condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged 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 producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or
enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon
the wax. De Béranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent and spirit-
stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves
deeply into the public attention, 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 following exquisite
little Serenade: I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night
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!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark the silent stream—
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
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:
O, 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 himself 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: 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 called her good as fair—
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true—
For heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo—
But honor'd well her 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 walk'd forlorn,
And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow
From 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 recognise
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 sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all
the other works of this author.

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 Literature 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
especially 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 acknowledge 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 immediately there discover
that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more
thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem
per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written

solely for the poem's sake.

With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man, I
would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation. 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 enforcing a truth we need severity
rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We
must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. 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 difference
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 attempting 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 Aristotle 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
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 obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself
with displaying the charms, waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of
her deformity, her disproportion, her animosity 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 Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight 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 enthusiasm, 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 belongs to the immortality of man. It is at
once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the
desire of the moth 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 certain 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 indeterminate 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 develop 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 certainty that Music, in its various
modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as
never to be wisely rejected—is so vitally important an adjunct, that he is
simply silly who declines its assistance, 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 Sentiment, 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 of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or
with the Conscience it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, 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 of the Beautiful. 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 Sentiment, and which is so easily
distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from
Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore—
using the word as inclusive of the sublime—I make Beauty the province of
the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be
made to spring as directly as possible 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 follows,
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
purposes of the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them
down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere 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 Pröem to 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.

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.

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 justly 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
Down the corridors of Time. The idea of the last quatrain is also very
effective. The poem on the whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the
graceful insouciance of its metre, so well in accordance with the character
of the sentiments, and especially 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
understanding, or with the instinct, that the tone, in composition, should
always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt—and must
perpetually vary, of course, with 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 exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.

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 love-tale, 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 blent?
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 music flow;

But if, around my place 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 soften'd 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
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 voluptuous
—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 impression 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 certain 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
perceptible even in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as "The Health" of
Edward Coote Pinkney: 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
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 have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that
magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American
Letters, 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
pardon 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.
Boccalina, in his Advertisements 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 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 excellence if it require
to be demonstrated its such:—and thus to point out too particularly the
merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether.

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—"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 that 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 'tis 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 of
all other men, as to have induced, very naturally, the idea that he is 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 language I can
call to mind no poem more profoundly—more weirdly imaginative, in the
best sense, than the lines commencing— "I would I were by that dim
lake"— which are the composition 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 stars unrivall'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,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home,
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-waved 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 blest 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
unexceptionable, one of the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and
in its execution. It is, moreover, powerfully ideal—imaginative. I regret that
its length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it
permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs:" 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, not 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.

Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;

But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

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!

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 guesses
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.

Take her up tenderly;
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently,—kindly,—
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest,—
Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behavior,
And leaving, with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour! 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.

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 shivered,
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, 'twas 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,
'Twas 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,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee. 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 himself entitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he
still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect 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 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.

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 imperfect 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 for Supernal
Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating
excitement of the soul, quite independent of that passion which is the
intoxication 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 Dionasan Venus—is
unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to
Truth, if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive

a harmony where none was apparent 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 true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements
which induce in the Poet himself the 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
distance 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 Æolus, 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
perfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes to him at
eventide from far-distant 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 lustre 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 endurance, 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.

Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one very
different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by
Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and
altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety 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: A steed! a steed! of matchless speede!
A sword of metal keene!
Al else to noble heartes is drosse—

Al else on earth is meane.
The neighynge of the war-horse prowde.
The rowleing of the drum,
The clangor of the trumpet lowde—
Be soundes from heaven that come.
And oh! the thundering presse of knightes,
When as their war-cryes welle,
May tole from heaven an angel bright,
And rowse a fiend from hell,
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 your eye
When the sword-hilt's in our hand,—
Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe
For the fayrest 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!

The Philosophy of Composition
Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an
examination I once made of the mechanism of Barnaby Rudge, says—"By
the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his Caleb Williams backwards?
He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second
volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting
for what had been done."

I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin—
and indeed what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in accordance
with Mr. Dickens's idea—but the author of Caleb Williams was too good an

artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat
similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name,
must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the
pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can give a
plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the
incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of
the intention.

There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story.
Either history affords a thesis—or one is suggested by an incident of the
day—or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of
striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative—-designing,
generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or autorial comment,
whatever crevices of fact or action may, from page to page, render
themselves apparent.

I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality
always in view—for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so
obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest—I say to myself, in the
first place, "Of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart,
the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on
the present occasion, select?" Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a
vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone—
whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by
peculiarity both of incident and tone—afterwards looking about me (or
rather within) for such combinations of events or tone as shall best aid me
in the construction of the effect.

I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by
any author who would—that is to say, who could—detail, step by step, the
processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point
of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am
much at a loss to say—but perhaps the autorial vanity has had more to do
with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers—poets in especial
—prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy
—an ecstatic intuition—and would positively shudder at letting the public
take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of

thought—at the true purposes seized only at the last moment—at the
innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view—
at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable—at the
cautious selections and rejections—at the painful erasures and
interpolations,—in a word, at the wheels and pinions, the tackle for scene-
shifting, the step-ladders and demon-traps, the cock's feathers, the red paint,
and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred,
constitute the properties of the literary histrio.

I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in
which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his
conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-
mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.

For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to,
nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive
steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of an analysis, or
reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite
independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not
be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi
by which some one of my own works was put together. I select "The
Raven" as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that
no one point in its composition is referrible either to accident or intuition—
that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision
and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance—or say
the necessity—which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of
composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

We commence, then, with this intention.

The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long
to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely
important effect derivable from unity of impression—for, if two sittings be
required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at
once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense

with anything that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen
whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of
unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is,
in fact, merely a succession of brief ones—that is to say, of brief poetical
effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only inasmuch as it
intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense excitements are,
through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one-half of the
"Paradise Lost" is essentially prose—a succession of poetical excitements
interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions—the whole being
deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important
artistic element, totality, or unity of effect.

It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all
works of literary art—the limit of a single sitting—and that, although in
certain classes of prose composition, such as Robinson Crusoe (demanding
no unity), this limit may be advantageously overpassed, it can never
properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem
may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit—in other words, to
the excitement or elevation—again, in other words, to the degree of the true
poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity
must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect—this, with one
proviso—that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the
production of any effect at all.

Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement
which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste, I
reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem—
a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.

My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be
conveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction,
I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally
appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to
demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with
the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration—the point, I
mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words,
however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have

evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the
most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in
the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty,
they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect—they refer,
in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul —not of intellect, or
of heart—upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in
consequence of contemplating "the beautiful." Now I designate Beauty as
the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that
effects should be made to spring from direct causes— that objects should be
attained through means best adapted for their attainment—no one as yet
having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to is
most readily attained in the poem. Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction
of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are,
although attainable to a certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable
in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a homeliness (the
truly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic to
that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of
the soul. It by no means follows from anything here said that passion, or
even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a
poem—for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do
discords in music, by contrast—but the true artist will always contrive, first,
to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and
secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the
atmosphere and the essence of the poem.

Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the
tone of its highest manifestation—and all experience has shown that this
tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme
development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is
thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

The length, the province, and the tone being thus determined, I betook
myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic
piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the
poem—some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully
thinking over all the usual artistic effects—or more properly points, in the
theatrical sense—I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had

been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its
employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the
necessity of submitting it to analysis. I considered it, however, with regard
to its susceptibility of improvement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive
condition. As commonly used, the refrain, or burden, not only is limited to
lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone—
both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of
identity—of repetition. I resolved to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by
adhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied
that of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel
effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain—the refrain itself
remaining, for the most part, unvaried.

These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain.
Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the
refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable
difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length. In
proportion to the brevity of the sentence would of course be the facility of
the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain.

The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up
my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was of course a
corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to
have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis,
admitted no doubt, and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o
as the most sonorous vowel in connection with r as the most producible
consonant.

The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to
select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest
possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the
tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible
to overlook the word "Nevermore." In fact, it was the very first which
presented itself.

The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word
"nevermore." In observing the difficulty which I at once found in inventing

a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to
perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the
word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being
—I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the
reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of
the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a
non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in
the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven
as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the
intended tone.

I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven, the bird of ill-omen,
monotonously repeating the one word "Nevermore" at the conclusion of
each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred
lines. Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness or perfection at all
points, I asked myself—"Of all melancholy topics what, according to the
universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?" Death, was
the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is this most melancholy of topics
most poetical?" From what I have already explained at some length, the
answer here also is obvious—"When it most closely allies itself to Beauty;
the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical
topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for
such topic are those of a bereaved lover."

I had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased
mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word "Nevermore." I had
to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the
application of the word repeated, but the only intelligible mode of such
combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in answer
to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the
opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending, that is to
say, the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could make the
first query propounded by the lover—the first query to which the Raven
should reply "Nevermore"—that I could make this first query a
commonplace one, the second less so, the third still less, and so on, until at
length the lover, startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy
character of the word itself, by its frequent repetition, and by a

consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it, is at
length excited to superstition, and wildly propounds queries of a far
different character—queries whose solution he has passionately at heart—
propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair
which delights in self-torture—propounds them not altogether because he
believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which reason
assures him is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote), but because he
experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his questions as to receive
from the expected "Nevermore" the most delicious because the most
intolerable of sorrow. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me, or, more
strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction, I first
established in mind the climax or concluding query—that query to which
"Nevermore" should be in the last place an answer—that query in reply to
which this word "Nevermore" should involve the utmost conceivable
amount of sorrow and despair.

Here then the poem may be said to have its beginning, at the end where all
works of art should begin; for it was here at this point of my
preconsiderations that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the
stanza: "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." I composed this stanza, at this point, first
that, by establishing the climax, I might the better vary and graduate, as
regards seriousness, and importance the preceding queries of the lover, and
secondly, that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length
and general arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas
which were to precede, so that none of them might surpass this in
rhythmical effect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition to
construct more vigorous stanzas, I should without scruple have purposely
enfeebled them so as not to interfere with the climacteric effect.

And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object
(as usual) was originality. The extent to which this has been neglected in
versification is one of the most unaccountable things in the world.

Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm, it is still
clear that the possible varieties of metre and stanza are absolutely infinite;
and yet, for centuries, no man, in verse has ever done, or ever seemed to
think of doing, an original thing. The fact is that originality (unless in minds
of very unusual force) is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse
or intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought and,
although a positive merit of the highest class, demands in its attainment less
of invention than negation.

Of course I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the
"Raven." The former is trochaic—the latter is octametre acatalectic,
alternating with heptametre catalectic repeated in the refrain of the fifth
verse, and terminating with tetrametre catalectic. Less pedantically, the feet
employed throughout (trochees) consists of a long syllable followed by a
short; the first line of the stanza consists of eight of these feet, the second of
seven and a half (in effect two-thirds), the third of eight, the fourth of seven
and a half, the fifth the same, the sixth three and a half. Now, each of these
lines taken individually has been employed before, and what originality the
"Raven" has, is in their combinations into stanzas; nothing even remotely
approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The effect of this
originality of combination is aided by other unusual and some altogether
novel effects, arising from an extension of the application of the principles
of rhyme and alliteration.

The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover
and the Raven—and the first branch of this consideration was the locale.
For this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest, or the fields
—but it has always appeared to me that a close circumscription of space is
absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident—it has the force of a
frame to a picture. It has an indisputable moral power in keeping
concentrated the attention, and, of course, must not be confounded with
mere unity of place.

I determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber —in a chamber
rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The
room is represented as richly furnished—this in mere pursuance of the ideas
I have already explained on the subject of Beauty, as the sole true poetical

thesis.

The locale being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird—and the
thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The idea of
making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the
wings of the bird against the shutter, is a "tapping" at the door, originated in
a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity, and in a desire to
admit the incidental effect arising from the lover's throwing open the door,
finding all dark, and thence adopting the half-fancy that it was the spirit of
his mistress that knocked.

I made the night tempestuous, first to account for the Raven's seeking
admission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical)
serenity within the chamber.

I made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of contrast
between the marble and the plumage—it being understood that the bust was
absolutely suggested by the bird—the bust of Pallas being chosen, first, as
most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and, secondly, for the
sonorousness of the word, Pallas, itself.

About the middle of the poem, also, I have availed myself of the force of
contrast, with a view of deepening the ultimate impression. For example, an
air of the fantastic—approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was
admissible—is given to the Raven's entrance. He comes in "with many a
flirt and flutter." Not the least obeisance made he—not a moment stopped
or stayed he,
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door. In the two
stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out: Then this
ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance 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—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore? "
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,