∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
This is a companion piece to the foregoing, written on another page of Elizabeth Herring's album. Poe surely did not plan to print it. He took unusual poetic license in misspelling a name in order to gain an initial, and in confusing the story of Endymion.
TEXTS
(A) Manuscript signed “E. A. P.” about 1829, described, and lines 1-2 quoted, in the Catalogue of the Harold Peirce Sale, Philadelphia, May 6, 1903, lot 960; (B) complete text in Anderson's Catalogue, May 19, 1905, lot 366; (C) Complete Poems, ed. J. H. Whitty (1911), p. 141. The manuscript (A), owned by H. Bradley Martin, is followed.
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
[[n]]
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
[[n]]
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes. [page 150:]
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
[[n]]
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.
[1829?]
The initials of the lines spell Elizabeth.
3 “L. E. L.” was the signature of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. See note on “A Dream,” lines 3-4.
4 “Zantippe” is of course Xanthippe, the shrewish wife of Socrates; emendation would spoil the acrostic.
8-9 Compare the following from the first of Moore's Evenings in Greece, lines 139-140: “And dying quenched the fatal fire / At once of both her heart and lyre.” According to the usual legend, Endymion was not killed, but put to sleep in a cave on Mount Latmos, where the virgin moon-goddess could kiss him nightly. Poe refers to him again in “Serenade” (1833).
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
None.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:1 - TOM1P, 1969] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (An Acrostic (Elizabeth, it is in vain))