over that little phrase. Again, line 53 reads in the The bowed with age, the infant in the smile In the complete edition of 1883, representing, we In the full strength of years, matron and maid, As originally published in the "North American Re- There could scarcely be imagined a life more entirely contrasted to Bryant's than that of Edgar Allan Poe. He was the child of David and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, who were at the time of his birth members of the dramatic company of the Federal Street Theatre, Boston. In that city Poe was born, January 19, 1809. Left an orphan in his childhood, he was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, Virginia. He accompanied his adopted parents to England, and was at school for five years at Stoke-Newington. This school he has described in the story "William Wilson." He spent a short time at the University of Virginia, and then for a little while was in Mr. Allan's counting-room in Richmond. He left here "to seek his fortune," and at Boston in 1827 issued his first volume, “Tamerlane, and Other Poems." Thus his poetical career began early, as did Bryant's. But the poems in this volume do not bear the relation to Poe's subsequent work that "Thanatopsis" does to Bryant's. His earnings from his literary work were not large; and probably in a fit of despair he enlisted in the United States army. He did well as a soldier, and was promoted; and Mr. Allan, learning of his whereabouts, secured his appointment to a cadetship at West Point. He was more interested in poetry than in his professional studies, however; neglected his studies, and in 1831 was cashiered. From this time he earned a precarious support by his pen. He was editor of magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York. He gained distinction as a critical writer, and by his weird and powerful tales. On the 29th of January, 1845, "The Raven" appeared in the New York "Evening Mirror," and from that time Poe was famous. The last years of his life were spent in New York, his home being at Fordham, a suburb of the city. His home relations were happy, in the sense that a tender and faithful affection existed between him and his wife. Her health was always delicate, however, and her death confirmed Poe's tendency to irregular habits, which were the cause, or at least the occasion, of his own death, in Baltimore, in October, 1849. The judgments upon Poe's life and work have been varied in the extreme. Lowell wrote in the "Fable for Critics": There comes Poe with his raven like Barnaby Rudge, It is a great deal to say of any one that he is threefifths genius. It is severe, however, to call the remaining two-fifths sheer fudge. On the other hand, some critics have maintained that Poe is the only original genius in American Literature. All agree in ascribing to him genius, which is the highest praise that can be given to a writer, but probably no two of them would agree exactly in their answers if asked just what they mean by genius. There can be no doubt, however, that in "The Raven," "The Bells," "Ulalume," "The Conquering Worm," "Annabel Lee," "Israfel," and indeed in most of his lyrics, Poe displays a mastery of sound, and a power of expressing feelings of despair, regret, and a wild sort of aspiration, which are of a very high degree, and of a kind all his own. It cannot be said that Poe is like any of the British poets. He is certainly not Wordsworthian, nor Byronic, nor is he like Shelley. He is Poe, and no one else, and like no one else. He is essentially lyrical. He did not believe in the Epic style, maintaining that if a poem or tale exceeded a certain moderate limit of length, its effect If we was injured; that the perfect poem must be a short poem. This is, of course, true of the lyrical poem, which appeals strongly to the emotions, and expresses the personality of the writer. Poe is intensely personal. It is his own despair, his own regrets, his own baffled hopes and desires, which inspire his verse. He seems to have little of the dramatic power of conceiving other beings, and expressing their thoughts, feelings, hopes, and characters. His poems interpret his own soul. They do not interpret nature. read Bryant's "Thanatopsis" or his "Hymn to Death," and then read Poe's "Conquering Worm," we can hardly fail to feel the contrast in thought and method. Bryant goes to nature for the meaning of death. Poe keeps his eye fixed upon the human being, and upon the body after death; and as he looks no further than the imagination can see, the effect is terrible. The horrors that nature hides from us, Poe drags to the light. Bryant imitates the reserve of the nature he studies. But Poe has what Bryant lacks, warmth and passion. His lyrics take a grip upon one that cannot easily be unloosed. "The Raven" and "The Bells" have probably been committed to memory and recited more frequently than any other American poems, and this is because of certain very high qualities of excellence. The refrain, which is a prominent characteristic of both, is of course an aid to the memory. But the intensely vivid picturing of the thought, and the perfect adaptation of the sound to the feeling, are the real secrets of the ease of memorizing. Take "The Bells" as an |