Text: Helen Lucile Watts, “The Coming of the Mammoth,” Poe's The Life and Writings of Henry Beck Hirst of Philadelphia Story, Masters Thesis, 1925

[page 64:]

Hirst's first collection, The Coming of the Mammoth, The Funeral of Time, and Other Poems, comprised fifty-four poems, twenty of which were sonnets.

We have found thirty-one of these poems in magazines or annuals, published either before or after the publication of the book.(18) It is highly probable that a number of the remaining twenty-three poems were in other magazines or newspapers which were not accessible to us.

Since Edgar Allan Poe wrote a long and careful criticism of this volume, which is accessible in the Harrison Edition of his Complete Works,(19) we shall not attempt here to consider the poems which he has fully treated there. We shall quote here from the second paragraph of Poe's criticism, which gives a general estimate of the volume, and also the third paragraph which gives*a general criticism of the first poem in the volume: —

“His imagination is vigorous, bold, and at the same time delicate. His sense of the true provinces of poetical art is remarkably keen and discriminating, and his versification is superior to that of any American poet. We perhaps should qualify this latter remark by observing that his knowledge of the metrical art is more profound and more accurate [page 65:] than that of any American poet — but that his knowledge too frequently leads him into the pedantry of hyperism. He is apt to overdo a good thing. He insists upon rhythmical and. metrical effect until they cease to have any effect at all — or until they give to his compositions an air of mere oddity. — His other defects are, chiefly, a want of constructive ability, occasional extravagance of expression, and a far more than occasional imitativeness. This last sin, is, in poetry, never to be forgiven, and we are sorry to say that Mr. Hirst is inordinately given to beautifully printed it. There is not a single poem in the volume before us which does not remind us, instantly, of some other composition. If we except some rhythmical effects (for which the author deserves great praise) there is nothing in the book which is fairly entitled to be called original, either in it's conception, execution, or manner, as a whole. Of detached thoughts, nevertheless, there are many very striking ones which are quite new, for any evidence that we have to the contrary.

“As very usually happens in a case of this kind, the leading and longest poem of the collection is the least worthy of notice. It is called ‘The Coming of the Mammoth’, and, to say nothing of its being a mere paraphrase, in all its moot striking points, of Mr. Mathews’ ‘Behemoth’, is feebly and incoherently narrated — narrated, indeed, very much as a schoolboy would narrate it. In fact, we understand that it is one of the earlies [[earliest]] compositions of the author, who began to write at a very immature age .”

Although Poe speaks in no uncertain terms, at the beginning of this criticism, about Hirst's fault of “a far more [page 66:] than occasional imitativeness”, he was too charitable in omitting to mention, in his treatment; of separate poems, that there are a number which “remind us, instantly”, of Poe's own poems. He also omits any mention of a few of the poems — arid we shall endeavor to fill these gaps in his criticism.

In his criticism of “Everard Grey”, for example, he quote a stanza including the line, —

which “reminds us, instantly”, of Poe's line, —

and even more of his

The manuscript of “The Autumn Wind”, his first published poem,(22) is now in the New York Public Library. It is written in Hirst's very legible the first’ and fourth stanza underlined. Only punctuated, so the underlining probably indicates that these were ready for the press.

The differences between this (undated) manuscript and the version of the poem in the Ladies’ Companion are slight and make little improvement. Only the last two lines are much changed. The manuscript here reads:

Hirst decided not to have the poem end with a death, and in the magazine it concludes with the lines: [page 67:]

His lines,

sound very much like some of the lines from “The Coming of the Mammoth” which Poe cited and criticized with just severity.

“Eleanore”, which Poe says “has no merit at all except the effect of the constantly recurring refrain ‘Eleanore’, and this is taken from Tennyson's ‘Oriana’ — had keen published in the Ladies’ Companion for August 1842, with the title “Leonore; a Lament”. This is significant, because Poe's poem “Lenore”, certainly also a lament, appeared in 1831, but did not have the name “Lenore” in it until 1843.(23) Poe also wrote a tale called “Eleanora”, in 1842.

Hirst not only changed the title of this poem for his book, but also a large part of the wording. Since we have so few examples of his revision, we quote the two versions of this poem here, giving the two forms of each stanza before proceeding to the next stanza. The first form, (a), given in each case is from the Ladies’ Companion, and the second, (b), from the book.

Undoubtedly the revision in the third and sixth stanzas considerably improved the poem, which in its first form is quite worthless and absurd.

Tennyson had published a poem, “Eleanore”, (both in 1833 and in 1842) with the word “Eleanore” at the end of each [page 70:] stanza. It is fully as probable that Hirst was influenced by this as by Tennyson's “Ballad of Oriana”, to which Poe refers, although the latter is more nearly the same rhythm as Hirst's poem.

Poe omitted to make any criticism of two poems — “The Passage of the Birds”, and “To a Ruined Fountain”. The first of these is indeed of no importance, but the latter is of real significance. It appeared first in the Ladies’ Companion for September, 1842, and then read as follows:

Griswold, in his criticism of Hirst's Endymion(24) says that every passage in it which “arrests attention” . . . . . . . . “whispers of familiar readings”. If that is true (as it most certainly is), this poem, “To a Ruined Fountain”, fairly shrieks of Poe's poetry.

Together with “Eleanore”, it is cited by Oberholtzer(25) as proof of Hirst's frequent imitation of Poe. Yet the words about the raven are perhaps not negligible among the influences which led to Poe's own most famous poem.

Although Hirst's poem has seven lines to the stanza, its metre is otherwise extremely similar to Poe's “The Haunted Palace”, which was published in 1839. The following are some parallel lines:

1.) Poe —

Hirst —

changed in his book to —

2.) Poe —

Hirst —

changed in his book to —

3.) Poe —

Hirst —

changed in the hook to —

4.) Poe —

Hirst —

which in his book reads:

5.) Poe —

Hirst —

which he revised, to read in the book —

But these parallels do not end the imitations of Poe in this poem. We must also compare Poe's lines in his [page 73:]

“Bridal Ballad”:

with Hirsts

Two stanzas of this poem of Poe's have seven lines each, of nearly the same metre as Hirst's, though with a different rhyme-scheme. Poe's “Isafrel [[Israfel]]” has three stanzas which are of seven lines each, and Poe used the rhyme “broken” and “token” in several poems.

The only thing which balances these Thefts from Poe is Hirst's use, in the second stanza, of the words “the never-dying raven”, which appear in both versions of the poem. Poe's “The Raven” was probably begun in 1842 or 1843,(26) so it is at least possible that the phrase “the never-dying raven” was original with Hirst, and affected Poe's conception of his well-known poem. The fact that Hirst later claimed authorship of this poem(27) may have been partly due to his origination of this phrase.

Of “Eulalie Vere”, Poe says only. that it has “nothing beyond the baroques lines:

And the lines are grotesque enough, to be sure. But this [page 74:] poem has additional interest for us. In the Ladies’ Companion for June, 1843, it had appeared with the title “Elenor Long”. In his edition of Poe's poems, Killis Campbell in commenting of Poe's “Eulalie” which was first published in July, 1843, says: “The name ‘Eulalie’ was also used by H.B. Hirst in the title of one of his poems, Eulalie Vere (published in his volume of poems, The Coming of the Mammoth, etc., in June, 1845), and by Mrs. Osgood in her poem Eulalie and as the refrain of her lines, Low, My Lute — Breathe Low (see her Poems, pp. 451-453, edition of 1850 ), both of which refer to Poe.”(28)

This may therefore be another debt of Poe's to Hirst, unless it was Poe who suggested the change of name for Hirst's poem. There is a “Guy De Vere” in Poe's “Lenore” (183l) — but Campbell says that “the family name ‘De Vere’ was well known in Poe's time”(29) and so was J. P. Ward's novel of the name.

The little poem “The Gift” deserves more attention from us than Poe's brief statement that it is “well versified, but common-place”. It reads as follows, as given in the book: — (30)

A GIFT

In 1834 Poe published his poem “To One in Paradise”. Three of its four stanzas have been so considerably imitated ‘by Hirst that we give them here for comparison: —

Here Hirst took the meter of Poe's first stanza, so it is no wonder that Poe characterized Hirst's poem as “well versified”. From the next two stanzas Hirst took the ideas and recast them into his own less happy words. The fourth stanza of Poe's poem is probably the finest, and this Hirst does not take, perhaps because he was incapable of reaching such a height of imagination.

The unusual word “inurn” which he uses in the next to the last line of the poem may have come from Poe's “Politian”, IV. (II), 68:

“Inured and entombed!”

The opening line of Hirst's second stanza, repeated in the fourth stanza, reminds us of Poe's works in “Tamerlane”:

Although Poe called the poem, “The Status Love”, “not very good”, Hirst had given it far more revision than he gave to most of his verse. It was first published in the Ladies’ Companion for July, 1844, and was then entitled “My Status Love”, and written in the first person. The first stanza then was:

In the book this stanza is changed only by using “he” for “I”, and “Parian” for “breathless” in the fifth line.

The first version of the second stanza reads:

Here we have Hirst's egotism quite plainly displayed, and we are glad that he at least changed it to the third person for his bock. The second and third lines of this stanza in the book are:

In the fifth line the gift to the lady is merely “a mind” in the second version.

The remaining stanzas were so much revised that we give both versions, stanza by stanza:

There is comparatively little in this poem which comes directly from Poe. He used “Parian marble” in “Al Aaraaf” (II, line 13), and the last line of Hirst's first version of stanza III may have been suggested by the line in Poe's “To [page 79:] F— —”: — “An Eden of bland repose”.

It is good to see that in his revision Hirst removed the expression “Eve-like” from the third stanza, and “Prometheus — like” from the fifth. In almost every instance the revision improved the poem; nevertheless Poe was right when he said of the final form that it “is not very good”,

Poe's general comment on the sonnets is that they are “well-constructed”. All of them are in the Shakespearean form, of three quatrains and a couplet. There are a few of them which deserve particular attention here. Poe cited the one to “Bethlehem” as especially good, and we quote it: —

The casual reader might suppose that this poem was about the famous Bethlehem of Judaea — but a careful heading will show that there are no allusions to Oriental scenery, except for the comparison with breezes of — Ceylon's seas; and Hirst, like any other romantic poet, would surely have talked of olive trees and Eastern skies and the great star if he had been writing of the town in Palestine. We must conclude, for these reasons and because of his definite references poplars and the oriole, that Hirst was inditing this sonnet to the (then) little town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It [page 80:] was incorporated in 1845, so this sonnet may have been an occasional poem.

The sonnet “Moonlight” has a beautiful sound, but some lines have very little sense. The mood of the whole is strongly reminiscent of the first and fifth stanzas of Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale”. The first line of the sonnet is: —

It is extremely doubtful whether the very effective word “swims” was original with Hirst. Keats had used it in two well-known passages. In “I Stood Tip-toe upon a Little Hill”, he has the following description of the moon:

In Keats's sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer” is the familiar line:

Also, in Keats's Sonnet “To Byron” there are the lines:

Later, in the criticism of Endymion, there will be occasion to discuss whether or not Hirst had read the poems of Keats. We have excellent evidence that he had read some, if not all, of his poems, in the fact that one of the sonnets in this volume is addressed to Keats. Hirst says: [page 81:]

The whole tone of many lines here, surely intentionally, is taken from Keats. The mention of “jasmine buds” is one’ of the very few’ cases where Hirst uses any definite flower other than the three most conventional ones — the rose, the lily, and the violet. Keats has a “jasmine bower” in his “Endymion” (II, 1. 670), and in “I Stood Tip-toe” (1. 135) there is the line:

Of greatest interest to us, in connection with Hirst's Endymion are the references here to “Dian”, the “Nymphs”, “Pan” and “the Satyr,” One would certainly assume that Hirst had read Keats's “Endymion” before he wrote this sonnet. The line,

must have been suggested by Keats's

The “alas! alas!”, and the “gleaming streams” and “dreams” in this sonnet bring us an echo of Poe's “To One in Paradise”. Hirst was fond of exclaiming “alas! alas!”, [page 82:] and at the opening of his sonnet on “Life” he even has “Alas, alas, alas!” .

The last of these sonnets which is of especial interest to us is “Astarte”, quoted by Poe in his criticism, as the best.

Here we have again a reference to Dian, and also to Endymion. There are a number of phrases in this sonnet which Hirst used again in his “Endymion” — including “hyacinth hair”, which he stole from Poe's first poem “To Helen”.

Campbell suggests that Poe's lines (65 and 66) in his second poem “To Helen” —

may have been derived from the tenth and eleventh lines of this sonnet of Hirst's.(34)

Poe had also, mentioned Astarte in His poem “Eulalie — A Song”, first printed in July, 1845.

Griswold's criticism of this volume in his account of [page 83:] Hirst's life and writings(35) is sufficiently just to be included here. He says:

“In 1845 he published in Boston his first volume, ‘The Coming or the Mammoth, the Funeral of Time, and other Poems, a book which certainly received all the praises to which it was entitled. It was not without graceful fancies, but its most striking characteristics were a clumsy extravagance of invention, and a vein of sentiment neither healthful nor practical. It had the merit, however, or musical though somewhat mechanical versification, and its reception was such as to encourage the author to new and more ambitious efforts.”

We may then say of the poems of this first volume, in summary, that they lack originality — ‘being especially influenced by Poe's verse — and have neither depth of Thought nor height of imagination, but do possess facility of versification and contain some happy phrases.

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