THE family of Mr. PoE is one of the oldest and most respectable in Baltimore. DAVID POE, his paternal grandfather, was a quartermaster-general in the Maryland line during the Revolution, and the intimate friend of LAFAYETTE, who, during his last visit to the United States, called personally upon the general's widow, and tendered her his acknowledgments for the services rendered to him by her husband. His great-grandfather, JOHN POE, married, in England, JANE, a daughter of Admiral JAMES MCBRIDE, noted in British naval history, and claiming kindred with some of the most illustrious English families. His father and mother died within a few weeks of each other, of consumption, leaving him an orphan, at two years of age. Mr. JOHN ALLAN, a wealthy gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, took a fancy to him, and persuaded General Por, his grandfather, to suffer him to adopt him. He was brought up in Mr. ALLAN'S family; and as that gentleman had no other children, he was regarded as his son and heir. In 1816 he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. ALLAN to Great Britain, visited every portion of it, and afterward passed four or five years in a school kept at Stoke Newington, near London, by the Reverend Doctor BRANSBY. He returned to America in 1822, and in 1825 went to the Jefferson University, at Charlottesville, in Virginia, where he led a very dissipated life, the manners of the college being at that time extremely dissolute. He took the first honours, however, and went home greatly in debt. Mr. ALLAN refused to pay some of his debts of honour, and he hastily quitted the Country on a Quixotic expedition to join the Greeks, then struggling for liberty. He did not reach his original destination, however, but made his way to St. Petersburg, in Russia, where he became involved in difficulties, from which he was extricated by the late Mr. HENRY MIDDLETON, the American minister at that capital. He returned home in 1829, and immediately afterward entered the military academy at West Point. In about eighteen months from that time, Mr. ALLAN, who had lost his first wife while Mr. PoE was in Russia, married again. He was sixty-five years of age, and the lady was young; Pox quarrelled with her, and the veteran husband, taking the part of his wife, addressed him an angry letter, which was answered in the same spirit. He died soon after, leaving an infant son the heir to his property, and bequeathed Poɛ nothing.
The army, in the opinion of the young cadet, was not a place for a poor man; so he left West Point abruptly, and determined to maintain himself by authorship. He had printed, while in the military academy, a small volume of poems,
most of which were written in early youth. They
illustrated the character of his abilities, and justi-
fied his anticipations of success. For a consider-
able time, however, his writings attracted but little
attention. At length, in 1831, the proprietor of
a weekly literary gazette in Baltimore offered two
premiums, one for the best story in prose, and the
other for the best poem. In due time our author
sent in two articles, both of which were successful
with the examining committee, and popular upon
their appearance before the public. The late Mr.
THOMAS W. WHITE had then recently established
"The Southern Literary Messenger," at Richmond,
and upon the warm recommendation of Mr. JOHN
P. KENNEDY, who was a member of the commit-
tee that has been referred to, Mr. PoE was engaged
by him to be its editor. He continued in this sit-
uation about a year and a half, in which he wrote
many brilliant articles, and raised the "Messen-
ger" to the first rank of literary periodicals.
He next removed to Philadelphia, to assist Mr.
W. E. BURTON in the editorship of the "Gentle-
man's Magazine," a miscellany that in 1840 was
merged in "Graham's Magazine," of which Mr.
Por became one of the principal writers, particu-
larly in criticism, in which his papers attracted
much attention, by their careful and skilful analy-
sis, and generally caustic severity. At this period,
however, he appears to have been more ambitious
of securing distinction in romantic fiction, and a
collection of his compositions in this department,
published in 1841, under the title of "Tales of
the Grotesque and the Arabesque," established his
reputation for ingenuity, imagination, and extraor-
dinary power in tragical narration.
Near the end of 1844 Mr. Poɛ removed to New York, where he conducted for several months a literary miscellany called "The Broadway Journal." In 1845 he published a volume of "Tales," and a collection of his "Poems;" in 1846 wrote a series of literary and personal sketches entitled "The Literati of New York City," which commanded much attention; in 1848 gave to the public, first as a lecture, and afterwards in print, "Eureka, a Prose Poem;" and in the summer of 1849 delivered several lectures, in Richmond and other cities, and on the seventh of October, while on his way to New York, died, suddenly, at Baltimore.
After his death a collection of his works, in three volumes, was published in New York, edited by me, in fulfilment of wishes he had expressed on the subject. It embraced nearly all his writings, except" Arthur Gordon Pym," a nautical romance, originally printed in the "Southern Literary Messenger," and a few pieces of humorous prose, in which he was less successful than in other kinds of
literature. In a memoir which is contained in these volumes I have endeavored to present, with as much kindly reserve in regard to his life as was consistent with justice, a view of his extraordinary intellectual and moral character. Unquestionably he was a man of genius, and those who are familiar with his melancholy history will not doubt that his genius was in a singular degree wasted or misapplied. In poetry, as in prose, he was most successful in the metaphysical treatment of the passions. His
Lo! Death has rear'd 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
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines, and palaces, and towers,
(Time-eaten towers that 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 wreathéd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gayly-jewell'd 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-
poems are constructed with wonderful ingenuity, and finished with consummate art. They illustrate gloomy imagination, and a taste almost faultless in a morbid sensitiveness of feeling, a shadowy and able to his temper. His rank as a poet is with the the apprehension of that sort of beauty most agree first class of his times. "The Raven," "Ulalume," "The Bells," and several of his other pieces, will be the capacities of the English language. remembered as among the finest monuments of
And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.
Ir was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may
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
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise, but I feel 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 sounding sea.
THE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispéd 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 Psyché, 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)—
Remember'd not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn-
As the star-dials hinted of morn-
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous 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 Psyché, 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 sybilic splendor is beaming
With hope and in beauty to-night:
See, it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, 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 Psyché and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom-
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb-
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said, "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied, "Ulalume-Ulalume-
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crispéd 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 bere-
That I brought a dread burden down here-
On this night of all nights in the year
Oh, 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,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
Said we then-the two, then-"Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls-
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls-
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these woldsFrom the thing that lies hidden in these wolds
Have drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the hell of the planetary souls ?"
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
Thy memory no more! Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
66 Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante !"
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 precipitant pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
Fell on the upturned 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 upturned faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturned-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. 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 enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a wo, 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!
Br 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 Thul-
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 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 darken'd 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 wander'd home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
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
From grief and groan,
To a golden throne,
Beside the King of Heaven."
Low lies thy love, LENORE! Come, let the burial-rite be readThe funeral-song be sung!— An anthem for the queenliest dead That ever died so youngA 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 bless'd her-that she died! How shall the ritual, then, be read? The requiem how be sung By you-by yours, the evil eyeBy yours, the slanderous tongue That did to death the innocence
That died, and died so young?"
Peccavimus;
But rave not thus!
And let a sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly, the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet LENORE
Hath "gone before,"
With Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild
For the dear child
That should have been thy bride
For her, the fair
And debonair,
That now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair
But not within her eyes
The life still there,
No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight
With a pean of old days!
Let no bell toll!
Amid its hallow'd 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-
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 enamour'd 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 singsThe trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a dutyWhere Love's a grown-up god
Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Therefore, thou art not wrong,
ISRAFELI, who despisest
An unimpassion'd song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suitThy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy luteWell 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.
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