Text: James H. Whitty, “Three Poems by Edgar Allan Poe,” The Nation (New York, NY), vol. 107, whole no. 2788, December 7, 1918, pp. 699-700

[page 699:]

Three Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

By J. H. WHITTY

WITH the constant advent of enthusiastic scholars into that field of research, it may be expected that additional harvests of new matter relating to the life and writings of Poe will be garnered from time to time. Dr. J. C. French has lately made an important contribution by directing attention to Poe's work in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter for 1833. A file of the Visiter for that year had for many years been lying unnoticed at Cantonsville, Md.

The new poems in the Visiter are called “Serenade,” “Fanny,” and “To ——— ” (Sleep on, sleep on, another hour.) A Poe authority to whom I sent copies wrote me that “he read them with some of that excited interest which Keats in his famous sonnet attributes to Balboa when he caught the first sight of the waters of the Pacific from the Peaks of Darien.” Another thought “the ‘Serenade’ just what a poem by Poe should have been at such a period, the very acorn of the oak, and reeks of the young genius. While the opening is a Byronic couplet, the imagery is pure Poe throughout, and the tone in his peculiar lyricism, with the right landscape, the slumbrous psychic mood, and the whole admirably blended and falling (as it were) to its climax in the last two lines.” I have other opinions, but none of them associates the “Serenade” with Poe's poems of 1827 and 1829. On the contrary, the imagery and diction would seem to belong more to the poems of 1831. It is in Poe's well-known poem of “Israfel” that the closest association may be seen. In lines 38-9 he wrote:

With the fervor of thy lute —

Well may the stars be mute!

These compare with lines three and four of the “Serenade”; but the most striking connection between the poems is the fact that Poe recast lines seven and eight of the “Serenade” into the final revision of “Israfel.” As the publication of the poem “Serenade” in the Dial is quite erroneous, and other deviations appear in republications from the Visiter, an attempt is made to give below correct copies. [page 700:] am indebted for them to Mr. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, of Columbia College, who recently made a personal inspection of the Visiter. The poem “Serenade” was accepted from “E. A. P.” by the Visiter, April 13, 1833, and appeared a week later, April 20, as follows:

SERENADE

By E. A. POE

So sweet, the hour — so calm the time,

I feel it more than half a crime

When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,

To mar the silence ev’n with lute.

At rest on ocean's brilliant dies

An image of Elysium lies:

Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,

Form in the deep another seven:

Endymion nodding from above

Sees in the sea a second love:

Within the valleys dim and brown,

And on the spectral mountain's crown

The wearied light is dying down:

And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky

Are redolent of sleep, as I

Am redolent of thee and thine

Enthralling love, my Adeline.

But list, O list! — so soft and low

Thy lover's voice to-night shall flow

That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem

My words the music of a dream.

Thus, while no single sound too rude,

Upon thy slumbers shall intrude,

Our thoughts, our souls — O God above!

In every deed shall mingle, love.

While it may seem odd that Poe should have sent to the Visiter two other poems later on without his name, still it was like Poe's usual way of doing things. Both these poems bear strong impress of his characteristic work, and are significantly signed Tamerlane. The following appeared on May 11, 1833:

TO ———

Sleep on, sleep on, another hour —

I would not break so calm a sleep,

To wake to sunshine and to show’r,

To smile and weep.

 

Sleep on, sleep on, like sculptured thing,

Majestic, beautiful art thou;

Sure seraph shields thee with his wing

And fans thy brow —

 

We would not deem thee child of earth,

For, O, angelic is thy form!

But that in heav’n thou hadst thy birth,

Where comes no storm

 

To mar the bright, the perfect flow’r,

But all is beautiful and still —

And golden sands proclaim the hour

Which brings no ill.

 

Sleep on, sleep on, some fairy dream

Perchance is woven in thy sleep —

But, O, thy spirit, calm, serene,

Must wake to weep.

 

The following poem also appeared in the Visiter of May 18, 1833:

FANNY

The dying swan by northern lakes

Sings its wild death song, sweet and clear,

And as the solemn music breaks

O’er hill and glen dissolves in air;

Thus musical thy soft voice came,

Thus trembled on thy tongue my name [column 2:]

 

Like sunburst through the ebon cloud,

Which veils the solemn midnight sky,

Piercing cold evening's sable shroud

Thus came the first glance of that eye;

But like the adamantine rock,

My spirit met and braved the shock.

 

Let memory the boy recall

Who laid his heart upon thy shrine,

When far away his footsteps fall,

Think that he deem’d thy charms divine;

A victim on love's alter slain,

By witching eyes which looked disdain.

The published statement that this poem possibly referred to Mrs. Allan's sister, who was known to Poe as Aunt Fanny, carries no force, because Mrs. Allan's sister was named Ann, and known to Poe as Aunt Nancy.

Poe's poem, “The Coliseum,” appeared in the Visiter of October 26, 1833. It closely follows the early Southern Literary Messenger version, the only important variation being a new line at the beginning:

Lone amphitheatre! Grey Coliseum!

The following published line, alleged to be metrically faulty, cannot be found in the original:

These mouldering plinths; this broken frieze

The tale “MS. Found in a Bottle” was published in the Visiter of October 19, 1833, and Poe received the prize of fifty dollars for it. The version differs slightly from that given by the Southern Literary Messenger and [[and]] Gift. The list of variants published in the Modern Language Notes for May, 1918, as appearing in the Visiter is inaccurate and misleading. Interested students should consult the original.

Mr. Mabbott has likewise recently found among Poe's own clippings, now in my possession, an unknown and interesting criticism by Poe, directed against Griswold and published in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum for 1843. For the first time, also, Mr. Mabbott has pointed out an unknown Poe couplet from the Broadway Journal for January 3, 1846:

I thought Kit North a bore — in 1824 —

I find the thought alive — in 1845.

Mr. Carl A. Weyerhauser has recently translated three papers of Frederick Spielhagen in Westermann's Monatshefte, on the Poe-Longfellow war, which show for the first time that Longfellow attempted to come back at Poe anonymously on criticism in his novel “Kavanagh.” In Chapter XX, Mr. Churchill (Longfellow) has a dialogue covering eleven pages on literary criticism with Mr. Hathaway (Poe), who desires to found a magazine which will raise the standard of American literature.

In addition to the above items, I have succeeded in finding the three volumes of the United States Military Magazine with which Poe was associated in Philadelphia. They contain no work signed by Poe, nor does there appear a likeness of him, as had been supposed. They do show, however, miscellaneous magazine work of a militant character, and a supposed new poem by Poe.

Three new and important poems, presumably written by Poe in later life, are also under final investigation. At least one of these shows marked characteristics of the poet and is apparently written in his best vein. A copy sent to a noted Poe authority brought the response that “if not by Poe, surely it was written by his alter ego.” These will probably appear in a forthcoming third edition of the “Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.”