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By Edgar A. Poe.
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Radiant palace — reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion —
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow —
(This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A wingéd odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tunéd law,
Round about a throne where, sitting,
Porphyrogene,
In state his glory well befitting, [sheet 2:]
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the encrimsoned windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody, [sheet 3:]
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.
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Notes:
This manuscript is mentioned by J. H. Whitty in “New Poe Poems and Manuscripts Found,” New York Sun (November 21, 1915), also printed, on the same date, in the Baltimore American. Whitty states: “The last manuscript copy of The Haunted Palace written by Poe was sent to Griswold. It was written on two large sheets of paper, and the first part, or one of the sheets, went astray and was considered lost. This has now been found in New England.”
An oval stamp on the back of the first sheet, in purple ink, reads: “HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY [/] CAMBRIDGE, MASS. [/] APR 1 1916.” Below the stamp is written, in pencil “Mrs. Murray Anthony Potter.” The back of the second sheet is blank. The third sheet is missing, and the final lines are supplied above by the text as printed by Griswold.
Murray Anthony Potter (1871-1915) was the head of the Spanish Department, and an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages at Harvard. He attended Harvard as a student, beginning in 1891. He received his A. B. in 1895 and remained at Harvard as a graduate student and teacher, achieving an A. M. degree in 1897 and a Ph. D. in 1899. With his freshly minted doctoral degree, he spent one year as a teacher at Dartmouth, where he was an Assistant Professor of French, but returned to Harvard the next year, where he remained until his death on May 17, 1915. He died suddenly from blood-poisoning. At this time, his home was at 191 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA. His wife was Bessie Lincoln Potter, having been married on April 17, 1900. She enjoyed a trust fund of $100,000 established by her father's will in 1907. She and her husband appear to have been generous donors to Harvard, giving money, the manuscript and various artwork, including a very fine Tiffany vase. There are still several Susan Anthony Potter Prizes at Harvard, established by Professor M. A. Potter in 1908 in memory of his mother. B. L. Potter appears to have died in 1957. How the Potters obtained the manuscript is not known, although William M. Griswold, who presumably inherited the manuscript as part of his father's papers about 1892, was a graduate of Harvard and maintained strong ties to his Alma Mater.
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[S:1 - MS, 1848 (photocopy)] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - The Haunted Palace (Text-10)