Text: John E. McCann, “Two Nights in Poe's Room,” Hiawatha World (Hiawatha, Kansas), vol. XXI, no. 37, September 11, 1884, p. 1, cols. 3-4

[page 1, column 3, continued:]

TWO NIGHTS IN POE'S ROOM.

BY JOHN E. MCCAN [[MCCANN]].

From John Swinton's Paper.

Twenty times had I been invited, and twenty times something had prevented my accepting my friend Yellott's invitation to pass a day and night beneath the roof of the little frame house in which that strange genius, Edgar Allan Poe, lived, and under which his beloved wife, Virginia, died.

The little house (one might tumble off its roof and fall upon the ground without serious injury) is situated on the top of a hill, and surrounded by two or three acres of greensward, and a number of fine old trees, all fenced in, at Fordham, about half a mile from the station, on the New York Central road, and about ten miles from Wall street.

When my eyes first rested upon it, it looked to me as if a good, strong northwester might lift it and blow it into eternity without any great effort-it is such a bandbox of an affair. To this little house came Poe and his wife and her mother, to live, quite forty years ago — and to that little house went I with my friend one warm Sunday afternoon in July, 1883.

“Now, just make yourself comfortable until dinner is announced, which will be in very few minutes, my boy-ah! here's mother; allow me.”

After dinner, I strolled around the grounds until the “great blonde moon” began to wane, when, completely fagged, I went to bed in the room in which “The Bells,” Annabel Lee,” “Eureka,” and “For Annie” were written.

The next day (Sunday), I spent as I had the better part of the previous night-strolling around the grounds. the afternoon, went over to St. John's College, just to eve what attracted Poe, for he spent many an hour in and around the college grounds; a beautiful place, certainly — grand old trees, cool walks and avenues and a fine play-ground, where I witnessed a rather exciting game of base-ball between the college nine and an outside nine, in which the college nine came off victorious.

In the evening, after dinner, we — my hostess, her son and I — sat on the little piazza which runs along the entire front of the cottage, and talked of its inhabitants of forty years ago. My hostess was a sympathetic, motherly, little lady of about fifty; and when I told her of how poor Virginia Poe died, on a pallet in one of the rooms above, of consumption, and how her husband and mother actually wanted for bread while she lay dying, could see the dear little soul's eyes moisten in the moonlight. She knew that he (Poe) was a famous man, and that he lived there; but she did not know that he was so poor. “Why, wasn’t he a genius?” she asked; “and I thought the world took good care of its geniuses.”

“Not always, mother. Sometimes the world waits until its geniuses are beyond being taken care of; then it nurses their fame,” said Yellott.

I told her some of Poe's wonderful stories: “The Gold Bug,” “MS. Found in Bottle,” “The Black Cat,” “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” — there in the moonlight, until the cuckoo told us that it was 11 o’clock, and time for my kindhearted little hostess to retire. So I bade her good night, smoked a quiet cigar with her son, and then went to my room.

Now, I do not expect many believers in what I am going to relate; but, with the editor's permission, I am going to relate it, with no waste of words or space. When I reached my room (Poe's room in days gone by), I took off my coat, vest and collar — for the night was — and, as I hadn’t the remotest idea of wooing Morpheus, I threw myself on the bed and smoked — one, two, three cigars. I heard the cuckoo below proclaim 12, 1 and 2 o’clock. My window was up; the moon was sprinkling the floor of my room with gold-dust; the crickets were calling to each other, the summer breezes gently stirred the leaves and branches of the pine and cherry trees outside, and the snowy curtain inside my chamber window; the aroma of my cigar scented the air, and I felt as if I were ready and willing to answer Mr. Mallock in the affirmative: that life was worth living, when I noticed my friend Yellott over near the window.

How came he there? He certainly did not come through the doorway, for the door I shut when I came in, and it had not swung upon its hinges since I closed it, three hours before. I swear he did not enter through the window.

“Ah!” said I. “Out of cigars? You will find my case on the table. Help yourself. But why enter a fellow's room in that mysterious fashion? Hang it, you have no idea how you startled me! I was thinking of Poe — have been doing nothing else for the past three hours — and the sight of you standing there made me forget for the moment that the poor fellow has been dust — nothing bat a mere handful of dust — for over thirty. [column 4:] Thirty years! What changes have taken place in the world of literature and art in that time! If Poe could only come back — if he could only come here to-night — I wonder if he would he glad to hear that no poem has been written by an American, since he went over, that caused such a sensation as his ‘Raven.’ I wonder if he would be glad to know that he isn’t forgotten; that — that — but —— My God! Why, am dreaming! Turn round! I reach out my hand, and try to touch you; you stand there with your back toward me. I try to touch you, and my hand cleaves empty air.”

“Do not try to touch me; it will be labor lost,” said he, without turning.

“That isn’t Yellott's voice — nor are you — ” Here he turned — and there stood Edgar Allan Poe.

There was no mistaking that beautiful, pale, classical face, those marvellous eyes, that short, dark moustache and slight figure clothed in black, with the old-fashioned, rolling Byronic collar, and in that room of all other places in the world!

“This is the first time,” he said, in the sweetest voice I ever heard outside of the Academy of Music, “I ever stood in this room, since left it, nearly forty years ago, and I shall never see this room, nor will I ever visit this world again. You see those clouds,” he went on, “riding past the mistress of the night. Well, just beyond those clouds I’ve lived for thirty-five years, with my Virginia. You think that just beyond those aerial waves of cerulean blue is Paradise, do you not? Wrong, very wrong. Beyond those clouds is world infinitely superior to this one, though; and in that world, can you realize it? is an ocean a8 large as would be your five great oceans were they rolling on majestically, and undivided by land, and in that ocean is the island of islands; on that island my Virginia and I have lived for years. I discovered it, bore her to it, and on it we have lived in peace. The world up there is not so perfect as the world above it — for above it is the world of worlds! The inhabitants up there look more lightly upon the faults and failings of men and women than the dwellers in this world look upon the imperfections of their fellow-men and women. Up there, Charity reigneth; beyond, all is peace, universal love — If a man lives up there as Christ lived upon earth, he will gain paradise through the infinite love of the Master. I have tried to live as a man should live. Virginia is one of the Master's elect. In yonder room she died, in my arms, to live again in a fairer and better world, where all is peace and tenderness and love — farewell,” and he melted away in the golden path of the amber-colored moon.

Dazed and faint, I reached my bed, wondering if, after all, it were not a trick of Yellott's. But not a sound had disturbed the stillness of the night, save the breezes sighing through the trees and our voices. Wondering, “dreaming, dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before,” I fell into a troubled sleep. In the morning awoke and found the manuscript of the appended poem rolled and grasped tightly to my breast, It is written in a small, beautifully clear hand. You may see it, if you wish:

ARCADIAN ISLE.

New York, August, 1884.