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POE, LONGFELLOW, AND PETER PINDAR.
“I REMEMBER,” says Dr. Griswold, in the remarkable memoir prefixed to that still more remarkable book “The Literati,” while writing of Poe's unblushing plagiarisms,* having been shown by Mr. Longfellow, several years ago, a series of papers which constitute a demonstration that Mr. Poe was indebted to him for the idea of the ‘The Haunted Palace,’ one of the most admirable of his poems, which he so pertinaciously asserted had been used by Mr. Longfellow in the production of his ‘Beleagured City.’ Mr. L.'s poem was written two or three years before the first publication of that by Poe, and it was during a portion of this time in Poe's possession; but it was not printed, I believe, until a few weeks after the appearance of ‘The Haunted Palace.’ It would be absurd, as Poe himself said many times, to believe the similarity of these pieces entirely accidental.” It may amuse the reader to contrast these two poems, and see how flimsy the charges of this kind, Poe was in the habit of setting up against his contemporaries. Many of the passages of this nature, which Dr. has preserved in the “works,” appear written in a spirit of pure wantonness; so that it would seem an insult to the man's understanding to believe him sincere. Though Poe was undoubtedly a great literary detector, from the artificial character of his own writings — on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief — yet his own habits of composition were entirely unique; and we are convinced, to nearly every writer of any merit, would be utterly repulsive. Poe, it would appear, thought every rother writer as great a mechanician as himself. This was an absurdity of the man, and runs through all his heavy declamations on Plagiarism. But to the poems, — which we shall contrast with a third, as far more likely to have been the secret literary tap visited by Poe. And first for Longfellow:
THE BELEAGUERED CITY.
I have read, in some old marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But, when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarméd air.
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled ;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Escamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between. [column 2:]
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.
And, when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
Now that poem is essentially Longfellow's; it is calm, meditative, and above all, picturesque, objective even in its subjectivity.
Poe tells his story of the human heart in another way: —
THE HAUNTED PALACE.
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 winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
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 red litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door,
To a discordant melody;
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out for ever,
And laugh — but smile no more.
The distinctive character of this composition is as truly Poe's, in its cold, weird desolation — the breathing of his troubled life. Yet the essential images of this poem, its material, are to be found in an author as unlike as possible, and devoted toe an occasion the very reverse of this ruin of the soul — even in that rollicking wit, Wolcot (Peter Pindar), and in a love song. It occurs among some imitations of ancient writers, entitled “New-Old Ballads:” —
BALLADE.
Couldst thou looke into myne Harte,
Thou wouldst see a Mansion drear [column 3:]
Some old haunted Tower aparte,
Where the spectre bands appear:
Sighing, gliding, ghestly forms,
‘Mid the ruin shook by storias.
Yet my Harte, whiche Love doth slighte,
Was a Palace passing fair;
Which did hold thyne image bright,
Thee the Queen of Beauty rare;
Which the laughing Pleasures fill’d,
And fair Fortune's sunae did gild.
When shall my poor Harte, alas,
Pleasure's Palace be againe?
That, sweet mayde, may come to pass,
When thou ceasest thy disdaine:
For thy smiles, like beams of day,
Banish spectre ferms away.
Peter Pindar versus Poe! The resemblance certainly is striking — far more than in the Longfellow case, which, according to Griswold, “was the first cause of all that malignant criticism which for so many years he carried on against Mr. Longfellow” — a most gratuitous cause for envy. On this Peter Pindar evidence Poe would have hung a brother author, while the testimony taken in his own critical court on various occasions is insufficient to convict the accused of even petty larceny!
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - LW, 1850] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Poe, Longfellow and Peter Pindar (Anonymous, 1850)