Text: James A. Harrison, “Appendix: Poems Attributed to Poe,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan PoeVol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:225-250


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[page 225:]

APPENDIX.

—————

POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO POE.

THE following Note by Mr. J. H. Ingram (“The Complete Poetical Works and Essays in Poetry, of Edgar Allan Poe, together with His Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” Frederick Warne & Co., London and New York) will give what light there is upon four poems attributed to Poe:

“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 caligraphy [[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, [page 226:] 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.’

“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.’(1) 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.’ ” [page 227:]

ALONE.

[“Scribner's Magazine,” September, 1875. Text. “Scribner's Magazine.”]

NOTE: — The poem is introduced by the following note in “Scribner's”; “The following verses, which are given in facsimile, were written by Edgar A. Poe, shortly before he left West Point in 1829.” Of course this date is wrong; Poe was not at West Point until July 1, 1830.

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 — / loved alone —

Then — 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 rolled

In its autumn tint of gold —

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by —

From the thunder and the storm —

And the cloud that took the form

When the rest of Heaven was blue

Of a demon in my view. —

(Signed)   E. A. POE.

Baltimore, March 17, 1829. [page 228:]

TO ISADORE.

[Broadway Journal, 1845.]

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 beautiful 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,

Enthrall’d my soul to thee!

III.

Ah! ever I behold

Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,

Blue as the languid skies [page 229:]

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 forever 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! [page 230:]

THE VILLAGE STREET.

[Broadway Journal, 1845.]

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. [page 231:]

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 had 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. [page 232:]

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!

(Signed)   A. M. Ide. [page 233:]

THE FOREST REVERIE.

[Broadway Journal, 1845.]

‘T is 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 not know, [page 234:]

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!

(Signed)   A. M. Ide. [page 235:]

ANNETTE.

[Broadway Journal, December 6, 1845.]

WITH fairy feet who treads the flowers?

Whose voice to the wind-harp sings?

Whose laughter startles the silent hours

And the shadows that brood with wide-spread wings

On the vine-hung walls of odorous bowers,

And over the waters of star-lit springs?

Whose smile do I see, thou beautiful one!

On lips like the leaves of the rose!

Like the tremulous smile of the radiant sun

On fields of the crusted snows: —

Or moonbeams that play where rivulets run

And crystal rivers repose!

Whose eyes so surpassing the violet's hue,

That the violets envying weep,

With glances of love in their depths of blue,

Like the clear, calm skies, so distant and deep,

Look out beneath fringes soft as the dew

On the violets in their sleep?

Annette! Annette! Ah, stay by my side!

Let me hear thy tremulous tone!

Thou art gentle and fair, like one who died,

(Alas that she died !) in days that have flown:

And no vision of pain

Dost thou bring me again

Of the golden-haired — the violet-eyed

But dreams of her beauty alone!

(Signed)   A. M. IDE. [page 236:]

THE MAMMOTH SQUASH.

By Edgar A. Poe.

[W. M. Griswold's Correspondence of R. W. Griswold, p. 200.]

GREEN and specked with spots of golden,

Never since the ages olden —

Since the time of Cain and Abel,

Never such a vegetable,

So with odors sweetest laden

Thus our halls appearance made in.

Who — oh! who in kindness sent thee

To afford my soul nepenthe?

Rude men seeing thee, say “Gosh!

‘T is a most enormous squash!”

But the one who peers within,

Knowledge of himself to win,

Says, while total silence reigns,

Silence, from the Stygian shore —

(Grim silence, darkling o’er)

“This may perchance be but the skull

Of Arthur Cleveland Coxe so dull —

Its streaked, yellow flesh — his brains.”

NOTE.

“The Mammoth Squash” is prefaced by the following words (Griswold's Correspondence, pp. 198-200): “In October, 1845, the literary world was amused by a clever article in T. Dunn English's Magazine, [page 237:] The Aristidean, a part of which I reprint as it indicates, more or less accurately, the prevailing opinion of the authors mentioned.

“ ‘Anxious to present our readers with the best specimens of the poetry of this country, we addressed notes to various of our poets, requesting them to furnish us, without charge, the means of fulfilling our desire. This, we conceived, to be a very modest request. To our surprise, some of these notes were returned, and others were retained, but no reply made. To some we received answers, with the required poems. We print, below, the whole of the latter. Our readers will enjoy these sublime effusions.’ ”

Then follow letters and poems from J. Pierpont, C. J. Peterson, Geo. P. Morris and J. G. Whittier, with the following burlesque:

“NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 28, 1845.

“MY DEAR SIR: For old acquaintance’ sake I comply with your request; but your attempt will be a failure. Reasoning a priori, I could demonstrate that it cannot succeed. But I will not waste my logic on an obstinate man.

“Your obedient servant,   
“EDGAR A. POE.”

Then follows “The Mammoth Squash.” [page 238:]

THE FIRE LEGEND.

WE insert the following poem as probably the most successful imitation of Poe's manner — if imitation it be — now in existence. Mr. J. H. Ingram, in his monograph on “The Raven,” London: George Redway: 1885, gives the history of the poem, which he considers a “tawdry parody.” Dr. B. B. Minor, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger from 1843 to 1847, sends J. A. H. this note:

“I have seen Russell's Mag. for Jan. 1860. On p. 372 it says:

“ ‘Considered partly as a parody and partly as a professed imitation, we have seldom read a more successful performance than the following:

“ ‘FIRE-FIEND — A NIGHTMARE.

“ ‘From an unpublished MS. of the late Edgar A. Poe, in the possession of Chas. D. Gardette.’

“The Messenger has ‘Fire-legend,’ etc. “In Stanza VII., the Mess, has ‘world-enriching.’

“I hesitated at this when I copied it.

Russell's Magazine has ‘world-encircling.’ ” [page 239:]

THE FIRE LEGEND — A NIGHTMARE.

[From Southern Literary Messenger, July, 1863.]

From an unpublished MS. of the late Edgar A. Poe.

1.

IN the deepest dearth(1) of midnight, while the sad and solemn swell

Still was floating, faintly echoed from the forest chapel bell —

Faintly, falteringly floating o’er the sable waves of air

That were thro’ the midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling —

In my chamber I lay dreaming, by the firelight's fitful gleaming,

And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart foredoomed to care!

2.

As the last, long, lingering echo of the midnight's mystic chime,

Lifting through the sable billows of the thither shore of Time —

Leaving on the starless silence not a token, nor a trace —

For a quivering sigh departed, from my couch in fear I started, —

Started to my feet in terror, for my dream's phantasmal error

Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming free! [page 240:]

3.

On the red hearth's reddest centre, from a blazing knot of oak,

Seemed to gibe and grin this phantom, when in terror I awoke;

And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to the floor,

Still in that dread vision seeming, turned my gaze toward the gleaming

Hearth and there! Oh, God! I saw it; and from its flaming jaw, it

Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore!

4.

Speechless struck with stony silence, frozen to the floor I stood,

Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling blood;

Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lambent lips;

Till the demon seemed to name me — then a wondrous calm o’ercame me,

And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death-damp stiff and gluey,

And I fell back on my pillow, in apparent soul-eclipse.

5.

Then as in death's seeming shadow, in the icy fall of fear

I lay stricken, came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear; [page 241:]

Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their sleep —

Muttering: “Higher! higher! higher! I am demon of the Fire!

I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire! and each blazing roof's my pyre,

And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my victims weep!

6.

“How I revel on the prairie! how 1 roar among the pines!

How I laugh when from the village o’er the snow the red flame shines

And I hear the shrieks of terror with a life in every breath!

How I scream with lambent laughter, as I hurl each crackling rafter

Down the fell abyss of fire, until higher, higher, higher,

Leap the high priests of my altar, in their merry dance of death!

7.

“I am monarch of the Fire! I am Vassal-King of Death!

World enriching, with the shadow of its doom upon my breath!

With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from my fatal face!

I command the Eternal Fire! Higher ! higher ! higher! higher!

Leap my ministering demons, like the phantasmagoric lemans

Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous embrace!” [page 242:]

8.

Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouded sleep,

And I slumbered like an infant in “the cradle of the deep ;”

Till the belfry in the forest quivered with the matin stroke,

And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidded ledges,

Skimmed through the russet arches, where the light in torn files marches,

Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak.

9.

Through my ivy-fretted casements, filtered in a tremulous note,

From the tall and stately linden where the robin swelled his throat

Querulous, quaker-breasted robin, calling quaintly for its mate!

Then I started up unbidden from my slumber, nightmare-ridden,

With the memory of that dire demon in my central fire,

On my eye's interior mirror like the shadow of a fate!

10.

Ah ! the fiendish fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap,

And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep;

But around its very centre, where the demon free had shone, [page 243:]

Forked shadows seemed to linger, pointing, as with spectral finger,

To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carved and olden;

And I bowed and said, “All power is of God — Of God alone!”

NOTE.

“Until recently I had supposed that this piece, [‘The Raven’] and a few which its author composed after its appearance, were exceptional in not having grown from germs in his boyish verse. But Mr. Fearing Gill has shown me some unpublished stanzas by Poe written in his eighteenth year, and entitled ‘The Demon of the Fire.’ The manuscript appears to be in the poet's early handwriting, and its genuineness is vouched for by the family in whose possession it has remained for half a century. Besides the plainest germs of ‘The Bells’ and ‘The Haunted Palace,’ it contains a few lines somewhat suggestive of the opening and close of The Raven.”

[The poem referred to is “The Fire Legend.”]

E. C. Stedman, The Raven: Illustrated by Gustave Doré: New York: Harper & Bros. 1884.

Apropos of this interesting subject, the editor is permitted to print the following notes from Wm. Fearing Gill, Esq., the noted Poe specialist and connoisseur, author of one of the standard lives of Poe. Mr. Gill's opinion in “The Fire Fiend” matter — strengthened as it is by Edmund Clarence Stedman's — is worthy of very high regard. — J. A. H. [page 244:]

7 EAST 46TH STREET,   
NEW YORK, Feb. 19, 1901.

DEAR SIR: The discovery of Poe's poem “The Demon of the Fire,” written, according to the history of it published in an obscure Georgia paper, at the University of Virginia, I regard as the most important thing that has transpired since my book came out regarding Poe.

One Charles A. Gardette claimed the verses as his own and published them in a collection, “One Hundred Choice Selections,” as a successful imitation of Poe's style under the title of “The Fire Fiend.” But you will find that E. C. Stedman mentions the original verses as in my possession in Poe's handwriting in his preface to Doré's illustrations of “The Raven,” Harper & Bros.

The poem is in the same metre as “The Raven,” and was unquestionably the germ of that symphony of remorse.

Yours sincerely,  
W. FEARING GILL.

318 WEST 57TH STREET,  
NEW YORK, June 1, 1901.

DEAR MR. HARRISON: Your letter has just been received, — forwarded here. The title of the desired poem as Poe wrote it is “The Demon of the Fire,” not “The Fire Fiend.” Gardette took that title to mask his steal from Poe of the verses. I do not know if the “Fire Legend,” Southern Literary Messenger, 1860, is the same; I never saw that. “The Demon of the Fire” was sent to me from Georgia in 1882, I think, first a printed copy in a small quarto sheet, then [page 245:] the original in Poe's hand on a single sheet of paper yellow with age. The poem, it was stated by Mr. Hoyt, I think, who sent it, was written at the University of Virginia when Poe was a student there. Stedman borrowed the original, and had it away for some time. There can be no doubt whatever that it was an original poem by Poe. One word was lacking in a line at the end of the second page; but in Gardette's plagiarism this is filled in by some word, added by him. Owing to the demands of a very sick child, I have been unable to make a thorough search for my copy of “The Demon of the Fire,” but I have written to Georgia, and hope to get another copy. The original was lost in moving some years after it came into my hands. I will lose no time in sending you the copy if it comes.

Gardette's publication of the verses under a different title is unfortunate, but I think not unprecedented by what happened in “Betsey and I Are Out” and “Beautiful Snow.”

Yours sincerely,  
W. FEARING GILL.

[page 246:]

THE || POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. ||

A Satire. || By Lavante. || Philadelphia : || William S. Young, — || No. 173 Race Street.|| 1847.

Note from “Passages from the Correspondence of R. W. Griswold :” W. M. Griswold, Cambridge, 1898: p. 88:

“The metrical satire referred to had the same title as Griswold's book [‘The Poets and Poetry of America.’]. ‘The poem,’ continues the [N. Y. Evening] Post writer [July 8, 1893], ‘which is signed “Lavante,” is written in heroic couplets and comprises about 950 lines. The fact of Poe's authorship was pretty clearly shown a few years ago by an enterprising gentleman, hiding himself behind the nom de plume of “Geoffrey Quarks,” who unearthed the original Philadelphia edition in some out of the way place and carefully edited a reprint.’ ”

The editor has copied one hundred lines of the “Lavante” satire from the Philadelphia edition of 1847, and herewith presents them to the reader for his judgment as to whether they are Poe's or not.

“And with his moral and religious views

Woos the wild fancies of an infant Muse,

Inspiring thoughts that he could not express,

Obscure, sublime! his secret happiness.”

CRABBE.

CLIME of the brave! entire from sea to sea!

Vain is thy boast that thou art blest and free! [page 247:]

Oh servile slave to eastern rules and rhyme,

Almost from Milton's blank to Chaucer's chime!

Thy own proud bards behold! a motley band

To lead the music of their native land.

Immortal Griswold! thine the deathless name(1)

Shall bear the palm of more than mortal fame!

For thine the lofty boast at once to save

The humble bard perchance from hapless grave,

Weave with his crown thy fadeless laurel bays,

And with thy nursling gain undying praise.

Yea, thine alone to search o’er Delphian height

That which shall give to gods and men delight;

At once to snatch from each lone wand’ring Muse

All which on earth could profit or amuse,

Then rise and soar o’er loftier peaks away,

And bask in Phoebus’ pure effulgent ray!

Blest be thy name! nor grief thy pleasure mar,

Nor fade thy life but with the morning star!

Awake, Satiric muse! awake in might

To strike, for Poesy's insulted right!

Awake in spite of Saunders and the fools

Who think of thee, as I of Parker's rules,

That thou art weak — and not that deathless fame

Awaits thy course to crown thy empty claim!

The chase is up; arise and onward press,

If mean the game, yet not the sport is less!

Keen be the jest, yet just the pointed stroke,

To silence folly in her shameless cloak;

Let impulse lead, not prudence guide the song,

Nor laughter fail to cheer the muse along. [page 248:]

What age can boast improvements like our own,

When men to gods, and idiots bards have grown?

No want of rhyme, though oft as light as chaff,

Vain as a bustle or a cenotaph;

Dreams, clouds, or gas-light, all are made

At cheapest rate by Espy or a blade!

Oh wondrous age ! whose glories far excel

All which romancers dream or fictions tell!

When monster banks can raise a monstrous panic,

And infants gain their growth by means galvanic!

Thus population, like the mania, speeds

O’er western wilds and noxious prairie meads.

New states are born, new stars our banner bless,

And struggling realms are caught like men at chess!

Our green-house bard and critic puff behold,

With native lead to make them brave and bold,

“Whose tow’ring brow and eagle eye “ might tell

With them undoubted genius, talent dwell!

Not in the past such lovely quacks were caught,

When Horace sung and elder Cato taught!

Oh! had they lived that censor's scowl to claim,

Soon had they found the downward path to fame.

No trace were left to tell their sunken race,

In life as worthless as in dying base;

Nor theirs the crime to wield the pointless pen,

Nor mine the task to lift the scourge again!

In modern times, who may not hope for praise,

When all we ask is but unmeaning lays?

And thoughtless bards can suit the servile throng

With heartless verse and worse than worthless song?

No theme Byronic, not the critic strain

Of reckless Pope, in thought and meaning plain;

Nor joyous Hope, by Campbell taught to please [page 249:]

Alike when life is sad or wrapt in ease;

Not these the subjects which our times demand.

To please the public and to curse the land!

But all enough if but the poet paint

Some fleeting shadow by a touch as faint,

Recount those hues which in the autumn streak

The woodland grove or distant mountain peak;

Some sickly dream relate to close the rhyme,

The task is done — complete without a crime!

No more we ask, no more the bard can give —

In times like these can mind or merit live?

Can genius flourish, or but scorn the crew

Such slaves to art and superficial view?

No! but for this the poet yields his name,

That public taste may canvass on his claim;

Condemn the false, approve the true to life,

Or sink the whole to end at once the strife;

No genius he who not demands in pride

That final word to be his future guide.

Such is my crime before this righteous age!

Too proud to stoop, or heed the critic's rage,

[ printed but to suit the present whim

Without a preface or a suppliant hymn!

Some others too have sought the luckless play;

To all I pledge the boon of health to-day,

But ere I close let none repine to see

That public trash is held most wondrous free.

Oh! for an arm less feeble than mine own

To sweep from dust Apollo's sacred throne!

Too much the chaff infests the precious grain

When shall a Pope or Byron live again?

Dr. Kent does not believe that these lines are by Poe. — ED. [page 250:]

TRANSLATION.

HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS.

Attributed to Poe by Mr. J. H. Ingram (“The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe,” J. C. Nimmo, London, 1884; Vol. iv., p. 330).

[Southern Literary Messenger, December, 1835.]

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!


[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 226:]

1.  Mr. Ingram it wrong in attributing the Ide poems to Poe. Ide was a real person and corresponded with Poe. See Vol. XVII. — J. A. H.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 239:]

1.  Depth?

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 247:] s

1.  It is the invaluable collection of Griswold that has formed the plot and ground-work of the Tale.


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Notes:

A key error that Harrison makes, following the earlier error of Ingram, is that there was indeed a real person named A. M. Ide, Jr. Indeed, Abijah Metcalf Ide, Jr. (1825-1873) was a farmer and poet who corresponded with Poe during his time as editor of the Broadway Journal. Consequently, the suggestion that they are by Poe may be dismissed, and all of those poems may be confidently removed from canon.

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[S:0 - JAH07, 1902] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (J. A. Harrison) (Appendix: Poems Attributed to Poe)