Text: Anonymous, “Death of Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe,” Oregon Spectator (Oregon Territory), February 7, 1850, vol. 4, no. 10, p. 1, col. 2

[page 1, column 2:]

Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, September [[October]] 7. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars.

In the following exquisite specimen of versification, the cadences of which are so natural, and in such keeping, there is illustrated less of the creative faculty than in most of his pieces. It was addressed to a woman of kindred genius, to whom, it is not a secret that sometime since the death of his first wife, he was for a short time engaged to be married. We know the scene, in a neighboring city, and we know that the incident of his meeting the person and of such circumstances is literally true:

[[To —— I saw thee once]]

 

[[Annabel Lee]]