Chapter I: Part 1

THE POEMS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE

_The Endymion Series_

POEMS BY JOHN KEATS. Illustrated and decorated by Robert Anning
Bell. With an Introduction by Professor Walter Raleigh, M.A. Second
Edition, revised, with several New Illustrations. Post 8vo. 7_s._
6_d._
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POEMS BY ROBERT BROWNING. Illustrated and decorated by Byam Shaw.
With an Introduction by Richard Garnett, LL.D., C.B. Second Edition.
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ENGLISH LYRICS FROM SPENSER TO MILTON. Illustrated and decorated by
R. Anning Bell. With an Introduction by John Dennis. Post 8vo. 6_s._
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MILTON’S MINOR POEMS. Illustrated and decorated by Alfred Garth
Jones. Post 8vo. 6_s._
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THE POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Illustrated and decorated by W. Heath
Robinson. With an Introduction by Noel Williams. Post 8vo. 6_s._
Also a limited Edition on Japanese Vellum. 21_s._ net.

LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS

THE POEMS
OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE

ILLUSTRATED AND
DECORATED BY
W·HEATH·ROBINSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY H·NOEL·WILLIAMS

LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1900

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

CONTENTS

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi

INTRODUCTION xv

PREFACE AND DEDICATION TO THE VOLUME OF 1845 xxxiii

POEMS
THE RAVEN 3
THE BELLS 13
ULALUME 23
BRIDAL BALLAD 29
LENORE 30
A VALENTINE 34
AN ENIGMA 37
TO HELEN 38
ANNABEL LEE 41
FOR ANNIE 42
TO F——S S. O——D 46
TO —— —— 46
THE CITY IN THE SEA 48
THE CONQUEROR WORM 50
THE SLEEPER 54
THE COLISEUM 57
DREAMLAND 58
EULALIE 62
TO MY MOTHER 63
ELDORADO 64
TO F—— 67
TO ONE IN PARADISE 68
HYMN 71
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM 72
TO ZANTE 75
THE HAUNTED PALACE 76
SILENCE 82
ISRAFEL 85
TO M. L. S—— 89
THE VALLEY OF UNREST 90

POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH

TO HELEN 93
SONNET: TO SCIENCE 94
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD 95
EVENING STAR 96
FAIRYLAND 99
THE LAKE: TO —— 101
A DREAM 102
A PÆAN 103
“THE HAPPIEST DAY” 105
ALONE 106
STANZAS (“In youth I have known one”) 107
TO —— (“The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see”) 110
TO THE RIVER 111
TO —— (“I heed not that my earthly lot”) 111
SONG 112
DREAMS 113
ROMANCE 114
TAMERLANE 115
AL AARAAF 127
NOTES TO AL AARAAF 144

SCENES FROM “POLITIAN” 149

LETTER TO MR. ——: Introduction to Poems (1831) 171

ESSAY ON THE POETIC PRINCIPLE 185

ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION 211

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE: “AL AARAAF.” PAGE

TITLE-PAGE.

CONTENTS (_headpiece_) vii
(_Tailpiece_) ix

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (_headpiece_) xi
(_Tailpiece_) xiv

INTRODUCTION (_headpiece_) xv
(_Tailpiece_) xxxii

PREFACE AND DEDICATION OF THE VOLUME OF 1845
(_decorated title_) xxxiii

HEADPIECE TO PREFACE xxxv

BORDER TO DEDICATION xxxvii

POEMS (_decorated title_) 1

THE RAVEN (_headpiece_) 3
“THE NIGHT’S PLUTONIAN SHORE” 8, 9

THE BELLS (_decorated title_) 13
(_Headpiece_) 15
“THE SWINGING AND THE RINGING OF THE BELLS” 17
(_Tailpiece_) 20

ULALUME (_frontispiece_) 22
ASTARTE 24
“IN AGONY SOBBED” 25
“IT WAS DOWN BY THE DANK TARN OF AUBER” 27

BRIDAL BALLAD (_headpiece_) 29

LENORE (_headpiece_) 30
LENORE 31

A VALENTINE (_tailpiece_) 34
A VALENTINE 35

AN ENIGMA (_headpiece_) 37

TO HELEN (_headpiece_) 38
(_Tailpiece_) 40

ANNABEL LEE (_headpiece_) 41

FOR ANNIE (_headpiece_) 42
(_Tailpiece_) 45

TO F——S S. O——D (_headpiece_) 46

TO —— —— (_tailpiece_) 47

THE CITY IN THE SEA (_headpiece_) 48
(_Tailpiece_) 50

THE CONQUEROR WORM
“WITH ITS PHANTOM CHASED FOR EVERMORE
BY A CROWD THAT SEIZE IT NOT” 51
(_Tailpiece_) 53

THE SLEEPER (_headpiece_) 54
“THE LADY SLEEPS” 55
(_Tailpiece_) 56

THE COLISEUM (_headpiece_) 57

“WHERE AN EIDOLON, NAMED NIGHT,
ON A BLACK THRONE REIGNS UPRIGHT” 59

EULALIE 62

TO MY MOTHER (_headpiece_) 63

ELDORADO: “HE MET A PILGRIM SHADOW” 64
“IN SEARCH OF ELDORADO” 65

TO F—— (_head- and tailpiece_) 67

TO ONE IN PARADISE 71

HYMN (_head- and tailpiece_) 71

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM (_headpiece_) 72
“I STAND AMID THE ROAR
OF A SURF-TORMENTED SHORE” 73

TO ZANTE (_headpiece_) 75

THE HAUNTED PALACE (_headpiece_) 76
“BUT EVIL THINGS, IN ROBES OF SORROW,
ASSAILED THE MONARCH’S HIGH ESTATE” 78, 79
(_Tailpiece_) 81

SILENCE (_head-and tailpiece_) 82
SILENCE 83

ISRAFEL (_headpiece_) 85
ISRAFEL 87

TO M. L. S—— (_headpiece_) 89

THE VALLEY OF UNREST (_headpiece_) 90

POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH (_decorated title_) 91

TO HELEN (_decorated border_) 93

SONNET: TO SCIENCE (_headpiece_) 94

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (_headpiece_) 95

EVENING STAR (_headpiece_) 96
EVENING STAR 97

FAIRYLAND (_headpiece_) 99
(_Tailpiece_) 100

THE LAKE: TO —— (_headpiece_) 101

A DREAM (_headpiece_) 102

A PÆAN (_headpiece_) 103

THE HAPPIEST DAY (_headpiece_) 105

ALONE (_headpiece_) 106
ALONE 107

STANZAS (_headpiece_) 109

TO —— (_headpiece_) 110

TO THE RIVER (_headpiece_) 111

SONG (_head- and tailpiece_) 112

DREAMS (_headpiece_) 113

ROMANCE (_headpiece_) 114

TAMERLANE (_decorated title_) 115
(_Headpiece_) 117
“ON THE MOUNTAIN PEAK ALONE” 121
TIMOUR 126

AL AARAAF (_decorated title_) 127
(_Headpiece to Part I._) 129
“SHE CEASED—AND BURIED THEN HER BURNING CHEEK
ABASHED, AMID THE LILIES” 133
(_Headpiece to Part II._) 136
(_Tailpiece_) 143
(_Headpiece to Notes_) 144

Scenes from “Politian” (_decorated title_) 149
(_Headpiece_) 151
“I CANNOT PRAY!— MY SOUL IS AT WAR WITH GOD” 157
(_Tailpiece_) 170

LETTER TO MR. —— (_headpiece_) 173
(_Tailpiece_) 181

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE (_frontispiece_) 184
(_Headpiece_) 185

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION (_headpiece_) 211

FINIS 225

INTRODUCTION

“A lie,” says an American proverb, “will run from Maine to Mexico while Truth is putting on its boots,” and the memories of few celebrated men have been more freely aspersed or more tardily vindicated than has that of Edgar Allan Poe. No sooner was the breath out of his body than his enemies addressed themselves to the congenial task of bespattering his reputation, and continued to do so, unchecked and almost unchallenged, for many years. Amongst other charges so contemptible as to be unworthy of a moment’s consideration, he was held up to public execration as a confirmed inebriate and denounced as a shameless plagiarist. At this distance of time it is hardly necessary to remark that the former charge was a particularly cruel perversion of the truth, while the latter was entirely without foundation. But it is a well-known axiom that, if only a sufficiency of mud is thrown, some of it is sure to stick; and in consequence Poe was for a long time denied that place on the roll of fame to which his remarkable talents, both as a poet and a romancer, fairly entitled him. The present generation, however, has witnessed a signal reaction in his favour. Thanks to the untiring efforts of several prominent men of letters both in his own country and in England, the darker shadows which rested upon his name have been effectually dispersed; the world has gradually come to take a more just view both of his character and his genius; and in this, the closing year of the nineteenth century, we find Poe’s reputation more firmly established than at any time since his untimely death in 1849.

To a right understanding of the works of any author some knowledge of his life is essential, for a man’s writings are always to a greater or less extent the reflection of his character and his surroundings. Of course there are exceptions to this as to other rules. There are authors whose forte lies in describing the passions and the impossibility of controlling them, and who in private life are confirmed misogynists; while there are others, whose most entertaining books have been dictated upon a bed of suffering from which there was little chance of their ever rising again. But Poe was not one of these exceptions: in his writings—and more especially in his poetry—his character is mirrored for all men to behold it.

Naturally of a morbid temperament, Poe’s innate propensity to look upon the dark side of things was strengthened by the circumstances in which he was placed. His life was one of continuous disappointment. He laboured incessantly, and hardly earned enough to keep body and soul together; he was, perhaps, the most original genius of his time, and was accused of pilfering from the work of vastly inferior minds; he was intensely ambitious, and remained a literary hack to the end of his days; he was of a most affectionate disposition, and was compelled to witness the one whom he loved best upon earth in the grip of a cruel and lingering disease, without possessing the means of procuring her the comforts which might have alleviated her sufferings. Knowing all this, can we wonder at the tone of settled melancholy which pervades his poetry—the regret for what might have been, the yearning for what can never be? Here and there, it is true, he strikes a different note, as in “Eulalie” and the charming little lyric “To Helen,” which latter poem, however, was written when he was still a boy; but these variations, like glimpses of blue sky on a dark and lowering horizon, only serve to intensify the general gloom. And yet, in spite of their sadness, there is a pathetic sweetness in his verses, which appeals irresistibly to the heart, and makes the reader fain to admit that in his particular strain Poe is indeed a master.

Born at Boston on January 19th, 1809—the son of one David Poe, a man of good family, who had married an actress and subsequently adopted his wife’s profession—Edgar Allan Poe had the misfortune to lose both his parents in infancy, after which he was adopted by his godfather, Mr. John Allan, a wealthy and childless Richmond merchant, with the intention, it is thought, of making him his heir. The boy was handsome, witty, and precocious, and was petted and indulged by his adopted father to his heart’s content; indeed, it is to the injudicious treatment which he then received that Poe himself ascribes many of the difficulties which beset his path in after life.

When eight years old he was brought to England and placed at a school at Stoke Newington kept by a Dr. Bransby, who is amusingly depicted in “William Wilson,” one of Poe’s finest stories. Here he remained five years, when he returned to America, and after studying until he was seventeen at a Richmond academy, matriculated at the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. At the University he seems to have acquired some reputation as a scholar; but at the end of his first session a difference of opinion with his godfather in respect of some gambling debts, which the old gentlemen very properly refused to pay, led to an open quarrel, and Poe, instead of returning to Charlottesville, set out for Europe, with the intention of assisting the Greeks, then struggling to free themselves from the intolerable yoke of Turkey. It does not appear, however, that he took any part in the war, nor even beheld, except in his mind’s eye, the remains of “the glory that _was_ Greece.” After wandering about the Continent for a couple of years he returned home, became reconciled to Mr. Allan, and, having expressed a wish to enter the army, was accordingly nominated to a cadetship at West Point. But, alas, the “Imp of the Perverse” was ever at his heels, and in less than twelve months he was cashiered “for various neglects of duty and disobedience of orders.”

The loss of his profession—no great matter in itself, for anyone less fitted for the strict discipline of a military life it would be difficult to imagine—was followed by another and far more serious quarrel with his adopted father, with the result that the young man found himself thrown upon his own resources. He had already published a small volume of poems—those comprised in his last collection as “Poems written in Youth”—which included the delightful stanzas beginning “Helen, thy beauty is to me,” and he now determined to turn to literature for a livelihood. Nothing is known of his career for the next two years; but in 1833 with a tale, “A MS. found in a Bottle,” and a poem, “The Coliseum,” he carried off two prizes offered for competition by a Baltimore newspaper, and having attracted the notice of one of the judges—Mr. John Kennedy, a well-known literary man—he obtained through his influence employment on “The Southern Literary Messenger,” at Richmond.

Henceforth, until his death, Poe was intimately connected with American journalism, and more than one moribund periodical was indebted to his eloquent pen for a fresh lease of life. He was an indefatigable worker, pouring forth poems, essays, stories, and reviews with feverish energy; and, at the same time, so fastidious that he never permitted a manuscript to leave his hands until he was satisfied that he had given the public of his very best. Unfortunately in America in those days literary work was very inadequately remunerated, while copyright was a mere farce; so that even for his finest poems and his most powerful tales Poe never received more than fifty or sixty dollars, and generally very much less, and was in consequence seldom free from pecuniary embarrassment. “The Raven,” which appeared in 1845 in Cotton’s “American Review,” brought him immediate fame, and—ten dollars; and while his poem was being read, and recited, and parodied all over the English-speaking world, the author was actually in want of the common necessaries of life. To add to his troubles, his wife, Virginia Clemm, a beautiful and charming girl whom he had married in 1836, and to whom he was most devotedly attached, had soon after their marriage contracted a fatal malady, and was slowly fading away before his eyes; and his anxiety on her behalf thoroughly unnerved him and weakened his power of self-restraint, never at any time very great. It was this, combined with ill-health and the strain of overwork, which drove him to the use of the stimulants which ultimately proved his ruin; but the statement that he habitually drank to excess was a malicious fabrication. The fact was that poor Poe, in common with many other people of a nervous, highly-strung temperament, was, as one of his most intimate friends assures us, unable to take “even a single glass of wine” with impunity.

Mrs. Poe died in 1847, and in the autumn of the following year Poe became engaged to a widow, named Mrs. Whitman, a lady of considerable literary attainments. This engagement, from which his friends hoped much, was unfortunately soon broken off, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, and on October 7th, 1849, the poet died under painful circumstances at Baltimore.

It is frequently asserted that Poe is a single-poem poet—that he is indebted for the niche he now occupies in the Temple of Song mainly to his wonderful poem “The Raven”; and that if “The Raven” had never been written, Poe would now be remembered merely as a skilful weaver of sensational romances, who wrote passable, if somewhat fantastic, verses in his leisure moments. But those who hold this opinion not only do Poe a grave injustice, but admit themselves incapable of appreciating some of the very finest lyrics in the English language. “The Raven,” it is true, is the poem whose artificial qualities appeal most strongly to the fancy of the general reader, and for this reason, if for no other, is entitled to all due respect from the critic; but remarkable as it undoubtedly is, it is open to question whether, considered purely as a poem, it is quite on the same plane with that masterpiece of imagination “The City in the Sea,” the mystical town where “Death has reared himself a throne,” or with that exquisite lyric “The Sleeper,” in which Poe’s inimitable power as a word-painter rises to such a height that we almost seem to see the beautiful dead woman lying pale and still in her “length of tress” waiting to exchange her death-chamber

“For one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy.”

Again, if neither “The Raven” nor either of the two poems we have just mentioned had been given to the world, such productions as “The Haunted Palace,” “Annabel Lee,” and “To Helen,” to say nothing of “Israfel,” “Ulalume,” and “The Bells,” containing as they do passages of the rarest charm, would surely have sufficed to keep their author’s memory green for all time. What can one possibly desire finer of their kind than those lines from that splendid piece of verbal music, “The Haunted Palace,” which no lover of Poe can resist quoting?—

“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 wingèd odour went away.”

However, although, as we have said, “The Raven” is, in its poetical constituents, probably inferior to some of Poe’s other poems, yet it is in the mind of the average reader so inseparably connected with its author’s claim to rank among

“The bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time,”

that it may not be out of place to say something about the way in which it came to be written. And first let us remark that the impression that still very generally prevails that “The Raven” was inspired by the death of the poet’s wife—that she is the “Lost Lenore” of the poem—is altogether erroneous, inasmuch as Virginia Poe’s death did not take place until January, 1847, while “The Raven” was first published in February, 1845—nearly two years earlier.

Poe himself, in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” in which he treats us to a very elaborate analysis of the methods employed in writing this poem, while ridiculing the suggestion that it was the offspring of any sudden impulse—of “any species of fine frenzy” under the influence of which poets are popularly believed to compose their masterpieces—does not admit that he is indebted for either the rhythm or the idea of “The Raven” to any extraneous sources. Several of his critics, however, regard this essay as not the least imaginative of his writings, and even hint that it is nothing more or less than an ingenious attempt to throw dust in the eyes of a too inquisitive public. One of the ablest and most discriminating of Poe’s critics, Mr. Stedman, in the admirable essay which is prefaced to Gustave Doré’s illustrations of this poem, while not going so far as this, is of the opinion that the rhythm of “The Raven” was suggested by Mrs. Browning’s (then Elizabeth Barrett) charming poem “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” in proof of which he points out a very remarkable similarity between certain verses in the two poems. Thus in Mrs. Browning’s poem we have:

“With a murmurous stir uncertain in the air the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows.”

While in “The Raven” we find:

“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.”

The fact that it was very largely due to the influence of Poe that Mrs. Browning’s works received such a favourable reception in America (she was a frequent contributor to “Graham’s Magazine” while it was edited by him); that he always professed the most intense admiration both for her genius and her lyrical methods; and that he subsequently dedicated to her, as “the noblest of her sex,” “The Raven and Other Poems,” would certainly seem to lend colour to this suggestion. Mr. Stedman, it may be added, does not insinuate that there is anything in this similarity which can possibly be construed into an act of plagiarism on the part of the American writer; indeed, the whole motive of the two poems—the one a love-story pure and simple with an ideal ending; the other a weird, fantastic creation, breathing an atmosphere of doubt and despair, of desires unfulfilled and hope abandoned—is altogether different.

Another theory, propounded by Mr. Ingram, who has, perhaps, done more than anyone to vindicate the memory of Poe from the calumnies of his _soi-disant_ biographer, Griswold, is that the inspiration of “The Raven” is to be found in a poem called “Isidore,” which was contributed by Albert Pike, the Arkansas poet, to “The New Mirror,” at a time when Poe was writing for the same journal. In this poem a bird “whose song enhances depression”—a mocking-bird to wit—also figures, while the refrain is not unlike that of “The Raven.” However, even if we are prepared to admit that “The Raven” is not so entirely the fruit of its author’s imagination as was at first supposed, this fact does not sensibly detract from the merits of a work which must always retain its place amongst the masterpieces of English verse.

Poe then, as we have endeavoured to show, is very far from being a single-poem poet; but, on the other hand, he is undoubtedly the poet of a single mood—a mood which by no stretch of the imagination can be called a pleasing one in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but withal so striking and so original as to command—nay, even to compel—the reader’s attention. Poe does not sing of “emerald fields” and “ambient streams,” like Wordsworth; of wide, rolling prairies and dense forests of murmuring pines, like Longfellow; of “stainless knights” and “lily maids,” like Tennyson; nor of love both within and without the limits of the conscience, like Byron. No, his theme is a widely different one from all these. As with his prose romances so with his poetry. Just as in his romances he concerns himself in the main with subjects which most writers of fiction leave severely alone—with death in strange and awful forms; with the horrors of insanity and remorse; with men who under mesmeric influences continue to speak long after the King of Terrors has laid his icy finger upon them; with others who are prematurely buried, and who explore the secrets of the charnel-house—in a word, with what his friend honest John Kennedy called “the terrific”: so in his poetry his song is of phantom cities sinking into fathomless seas; of demon shapes flitting through enchanted palaces; of ghoul-haunted tarns; of “sheeted memories of the past”; of loved ones who have been taken from us, and of the utter hopelessness of reunion with them in “the distant Aidenn.” Sadness, as we have said elsewhere, is the dominant note of all his poetry; but sadness, as he himself tells us in his “Philosophy of Composition,” was his conception of the highest tone of Beauty, and therefore the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. Thus we understand why it is that the death of a beautiful woman—the saddest of all losses—forms the burden of so many of his finest lyrics. How different is all this from Shelley, who defines poetry as what redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man, and is the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds; and yet Poe in his earlier efforts, such as “Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf,” was obviously the disciple of Shelley!

As we read these wonderful poems we are alternately repelled and attracted; still, strive as we may, we cannot escape the spell of those weird, mystic measures. When once we begin a poem, whether it be “The Raven,” “The City in the Sea,” or even “The Conqueror Worm,” we are compelled, in spite of ourselves, to read on to the end; and when the end is reached, it is not seldom with a sigh of regret that we close the book.

Poe confined himself almost entirely to simple ballad forms—which is the case even in poems like “Ulalume” and “The Bells,” where the measures certainly seem at first sight to be somewhat intricate—and relied for his effect upon the melody. With him everything was subordinate to sound. Here and there, as in “Ulalume,” it must be admitted that, in striving to please the ear, he approaches perilously near the point where “sense swoons into nonsense”; but, on the whole, as a melodist he achieved wonders, and no poet has used the refrain and the repetend in quite the same way or so effectively. What, for instance, in “The Bells” could possibly be more telling than the constant repetition of the word which gives its name to the poem? The repetend, his free use of which did so much for the success of “The Raven,” he employed even more lavishly in some of his later poems, such as “Lenore,” “Annabel Lee,” “Ulalume,” and “For Annie,” and with the happiest results. Thus:

“An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.”

And again:

“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.”

In the management of his metres, too, Poe stands almost without a rival. Unlike the majority of poets, who, in determining the length of a poem, are guided by the sense rather than by the sound, he regarded the melody as of equal if not of primary importance, and one famous critic has declared that “it would be impossible to omit a line or stanza without injuring the metrical as well as the intelligible effect.”

Regret is often expressed that—with the single exception of “Al Aaraaf,” which, however, was written when his intellect was still in its adolescent stage, and has done comparatively little to enhance his reputation—Poe, almost alone among the great poets of the nineteenth century, should never have given us a poem of any considerable length. But as a journalistic hack, forced to write by the column for his daily bread, Poe had but scant leisure for the composition of a “Childe Harold,” an “Endymion,” or a “Hiawatha,” and, moreover, it is extremely doubtful whether, even if the range of his possibilities had not been limited by his poverty, he would have done so, as he seems to have had a most profound contempt for prolixity in poetry. In his essay, “The Poetic Principle,” he maintains that “the phrase ‘a long poem’ is simply a flat contradiction in terms,”—that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites by elevating the soul; and that, as all such emotions are, by a psychical necessity, transient, it is obviously impossible for the necessary degree of excitement to be maintained throughout a composition of any great length. “After the lapse of half an hour at the very utmost,” he says, “it flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in effect and in fact, no longer such.” This theory of Poe’s gave rise to much hostile criticism, and justly so; still, it cannot be doubted that the time-honoured notion that no poem can be termed great that is not a long one, and no poet worthy of the name who has not written a long poem, has deprived the world of much fine lyric poetry by compelling able men to expend their time and energy in the production of bulky epics, for which in many cases their genius was but ill-adapted, instead of confining themselves to the lighter forms of verse. While thus condemning prolixity, however, Poe does not deny that a poem may be “improperly brief,” and thus “degenerate into mere epigrammatism”; and that “a _very_ short poem,” however great its intrinsic merits may be, can never hope to produce a profound or a lasting effect. He mentions Shelley’s exquisite “Lines to an Indian Air,” and his own friend Willis’s pathetic ballad, “Unseen Spirits,” as instances of poems which had failed to receive adequate recognition by reason of undue brevity.

The secret of Poe’s hostility to the long poem is probably to be found in the fact that he had the strongest possible aversion to the introduction of metaphysics into poetry, which he regarded as the “child of Taste,” whose sole function ought to be “the rhythmical creation of Beauty”; and the long poem had to a very large extent become identified with the Didactic school of poets, of which Wordsworth was the principal exponent.

Poe was not the first to raise a protest against what he termed “the _heresy_ of the Didactic.” Years before, Keats had declared that “people hated poetry that had a palpable design upon them,” and that “poetry should be great and unobtrusive.” Poe, however, went very much farther than the author of “Endymion” would have been likely to accompany him, for he maintains that “poetry has only collateral relations with the intellect and the conscience, and, unless incidentally, no concern whatever with either duty or truth.” To anyone who has even a superficial acquaintance with the great masters of verse the fallacy of such a proposition is obvious. Without the conception of duty and of truth, from which spring noble passions and great deeds—religious enthusiasm, love of humanity, love of liberty, self-sacrifice, loyalty, and patriotism—we should have had no Æschylus, no Sophocles, no Euripides, no Homer, no Shakespeare, no Milton, and no Tennyson—which reflection may enable us to bear with comparative equanimity the platitudes of the latter-day poet.

What Poe might have done or have left undone, had not “unmerciful Disaster” dogged his footsteps, and carried him off, as it had carried off Burns, and Keats, and Shelley, and Byron, and many another child of genius, before he had reached the meridian of his days, it were idle to speculate; but this much is certain—that, when the works of far greater poets have fallen into neglect, Poe will still be read and still appreciated, for, in the domain which he made so peculiarly his own, it is hardly possible to imagine that he will ever have to encounter anything approaching serious rivalry, while the feelings which he appeals to are universal.

NOEL WILLIAMS.

PREFACE AND DEDICATION OF VOLUME OF 1845

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.

E. A. P.

1845.

DEDICATION OF THE VOLUME OF 1845

TO
THE NOBLEST OF HER SEX—

TO THE AUTHOR OF
“THE DRAMA OF EXILE”—

TO
MISS ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT,
OF ENGLAND,

_I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME_

WITH THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION AND
WITH THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM.

E. A. P.

Poems

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 nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, 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!

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 the 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 endeavour
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 crash, 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 clamour and the clangour 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.

ULALUME

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd 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 splendour 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 crispèd 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.”

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 token
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.

LENORE

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!
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 damnèd 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.”

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 labour!
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.

[To find the name, 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.]

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.

[To find the name, read as in the preceding poem.]

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’ odours
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 enwritten
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!

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 wingèd 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.