Text: Charles W. Kent (notes) Robert A. Stewart (variants) (ed. J. A. Harrison), “Notes to The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:154

[page 154, continued:]

EDITOR’S NOTE.

The author whose seared, blighted heart bemoans a past day and hour of happiness would not live it over again because of the pain mingled with the pleasure. [page 155:]

This poem, written before Poe was eighteen years old, presents life from the point of view of a man worn-out with living. How soon had he learned such bitterness of life!