Text: Charles W. Kent (notes) Robert A. Stewart (variants) (ed. J. A. Harrison), “Notes to Sonnet to Science,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:156-157

[page 156, continued:]

Variations of 1829 from text.

Line 1 true (meet) 2 Old (s. l.) 3 art! (art) 2 eyes. (!) 3 preyest (prey'st) 4 Vulture, (!) realities? (!) 5 thee? (—) 5 wise, (o. c.) 6 wouldst (woulds’t) 6 in (, in) 7 jewelled (jewell’d) 7 skies, (o. c.) 8 wandering (wandering,) 8 he (, he) 8 soared (soar) 9 dragged (dragg’d) 9 car? (,) 10 driven (driv’n) 11 Hast ... food, (The gentle Naiad [page 157:] from her fountain-flood?) 12 Elfin (s. l.) 12 grass, (?) 13 tamarind tree (shrubbery).

Variations of 1831 from 1829.

Line 6 , in (o. c.) 6 woulds’t (would'st) 8 , he (o. c.) 11 fountain- (o. h.).

Variations of Southern Literary Messenger from 1831.

[Title, Sonnet.]

Line 3 art (art,) 5 thee — (,) 5 wise (wise,) 6 woulds’t (would'st) 6 , in (o. c.) 7 skies (skies,) 7 , he (he) 11 fountain- (o. h.).

Variations of Broadway Journal from the text.

Line 3 preyest (prey'st).

EDITOR’S NOTE.

The thought here is that poetic beauty is more than scientific reality.

This is a regular Shakespeare Sonnet.