Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), August 30, 1845, vol. 2, no. 8, p. ???, col. ?

[page 119, column 2, continued:]

Wiley and Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. No. XIX. Prose and Verse. By Thomas Hood. Part II.

Of this number of the Library we said a few words in our last, but we shall be pardoned for referring to it again, as it contains several of the most characteristic, as well as most meritorious compositions of one of the most remarkable men of his time.

The quizzical Letters entitled “Copyright and Copywrong” [page 120:] should be read by all true friends and fair enemies of International Copyright. The strong points of the question of copyright, generally, were never more forcibly, if ever more ludicrously, put.

“The Bridge of Sighs” is, with one exception, the finest poem written by Hood. It has been much admired and often quoted — but we have no hesitation in complying with a friend's request, to copy it in full. We must omit it, however, till next week.

“The Haunted House” we prefer to any composition of its author. It is a masterpiece of its kind — and that kind belongs to a very lofty — if not to the very loftiest order of poetical literature. Had we seen this piece before penning our first notice of Hood, we should have had much hesitation in speaking of Fancy and Fantasy as his predominant features. At all events we should have given him credit for much more of true Imagination than we did.

Not the least merit of the work is its rigorous simplicity. There is no narrative, and no doggrel philosophy. The whole subject is the description, of a deserted house, which the popular superstition considers haunted. The thesis is one of the truest in all poetry. As a mere thesis it is really difficult to conceive anything better. The strength of the poet is put forth in the invention of traits in keeping with the ideas of crime, abandonment, and ghostly visitation. Every legitimate art is brought in to aid in conveying the intended effects; and (what is quite remarkable in the case of Hood) nothing discordant is at any point introduced. He has here very little of what we have designated as the phantastic — little which is not strictly harmonious. The metre and rhythm are not only, in themselves, admirably adapted to the whole design, but, with a true artistic feeling, the poet has preserved a thorough monotone throughout, and renders its effect more impressive by the repetition (gradually increasing in frequency towards the finale) of one of the most pregnant and effective of the stanzas:

O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear;

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is haunted!

We quote a few of the most impressive quatrains:

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond,

Beside the water-hen so soon affrighted,

And in the reedy moat the heron, fond

Of solitude, alighted.

 

The moping heron, motionless and stiff,

That on a stone as silently and stilly

Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if

To guard the water-lily.

 

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach

Drooped from the wall with which they used to grapple;

And on the cankered tree, in easy reach,

Rotted the golden apple.

 

Howbeit, the door I pushed — or so I dreamed —

Which slowly, slowly, gaped — the hinges creaking

With such a rusty eloquence, it seemed

That Time himself was speaking.

 

The startled bats flew out, bird after bird,

The screech-owl overhead began to flutter,

And seemed to mock the cry that she had heard

Some dying victim utter.

 

A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof

And up the stair and further still and further,

Till in some ringing chamber far aloof

It ceased its tale of murther. [column 2:]

 

Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round,

The banner shuddered and the ragged streamer;

All things the horrid tenor of the sound

Acknowledged with a tremor.

 

The very stains and fractures on the wall,

Assuming features solemn and terrific,

Hinted some tragedy of that old hall,

Locked up in hieroglyphic.

 

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt

Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid,

The banner of the BLOODY HAND shone out

So ominously vivid.

 

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress

Of ev’ry step so many echoes blended,

The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess

How many feet ascended.

 

Yet no portentous shape the sight amazed;

Each object plain, and tangible, and valid;

But from their tarnished frames dark figures gazed,

And faces spectre-pallid.

 

Not merely with the mimic life that lies

Within the compass of Art's simulation:

Their souls were looking through their painted eyes

With awful speculation.

 

On every lip a speechless horror dwelt;

On every brow the burden of affliction;

The old ancestral spirits knew and felt

The house's malediction.

 

Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art,

With scripture history, or classic fable;

But all had faded, save one ragged part,

Where Cain was slaying Abel.

 

The death-watch ticked behind the panneled oak.

Inexplicable tremors shook the arras,

And echoes strange and mystical awoke,

The fancy to embarrass.

 

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread,

But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostly,

The while some secret inspiration said,

That chamber is the ghostly!

Had Hood only written “ The Haunted House” it would have sufficed to render him immortal.