Text: Anonymous, “Death of a Poet,” New-York Organ (New York, NY), vol. 9, no. 16, October 13, 1849, p. 133

[page 133:]

DEATH OF A POET. — Edgar A. Poe, whose writings, both prose and poetical, have attracted marked attention in this country, is numbered with the dead. He possessed genius of a peculiar and striking order, and had he not, like too many other gifted men, yielded to the snare of intemperance, he might have trodden a luminous pathway to immortality. Quite recently he appears to have renounced the enemy of his peace and usefulness, and was received as a member of a Division of the Sons of Temperance in Virginia. His friends and admirers were indulging the most favorable anticipation from this change in his course, when he again yielded, broke his pledge, and died of mania a potu in the Baltimore hospital. An awful warning comes up from the grave of this unhappy, self-ruined man. Would that it might make its due impression. — Think of Poe's miserable end, and then resolve to touch not, taste not the cup that poisoned him. When tempted to break your pledge, point to that grave and answer, No, never!