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In this poem, says Woodberry (1909, I, 44), “the treatment of landscape is wholly Poe's own ... it affords the first glimpse of that new tract of Acheron ... which he revealed” — a place “out of space, out of time.”
On the surface the poem merely says that one who visits a churchyard communes through memory with the departed. But I share Campbell's idea (Poems, p. 158) that the poem is inspired by the long incantation at the end of the first scene of Byron's Manfred, which is believed to refer to the last unsuccessful attempt at a reconciliation with Lady Byron. Poe's poem may be meant to say to Elmira Royster merely, “You never can quite forget the person you wronged.” The most significant lines from Manfred are:
And the meteor on the grave,
And the wisp on the morass; ...
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,
With a power and a sign....
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a Power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone ...
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky ...
The version of Poe's poem in his volume of 1827 contained two obvious misprints: “ferver” in line 17, which in text A below I have corrected to “fever” because of the rhyme, and “wish” in line 24, usually corrected to “mist” from the later versions, but here changed to “wisp,” which is in the Byronic source and is a less radical change from “wish.” About 1828 Poe made a number of changes in a manuscript version retitled “Spirits of the Dead.” (This manuscript, once in the possession of Lambert A. Wilmer, is, pace Woodberry, in Poe's own hand.) In 1829 he published the poem, still further revised, in his second little volume. In 1839 it was used as an unsigned filler in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. Griswold did not collect it, but it was pointed out as a [page 71:] new poem by Poe in the little periodical of the Washington Sanitary Fair, the Roll Call, of March 12, 1864. E. L. Didier collected it in The Life and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe in 1877.
TEXTS
(A) Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), pp. 27-28; (B) Wilmer manuscript, 1828, now owned by H. Bradley Martin; (C) Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829), pp. 65-66; (D) Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, July 1839 (5:51).
* * * *
Thy soul shall find itself alone —
Alone of all on earth — unknown
The cause — but none are near to pry
5
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
10
Shall then o’ershadow thee — be still:
For the night, tho’ clear, shall frown:
And the stars shall look not down
From their thrones, in the dark heav’n;
With light like Hope to mortals giv’n,
15
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy withering heart shall seem
Which would cling to thee forever.
But ’twill leave thee, as each star
20
— But its thought thou can'st not banish.
The breath of God will be still;
25
By that summer breeze unbrok’n [page 72:]
Shall charm thee — as a token,
[1827]
[[v]]
I
Thy soul shall find itself alone
’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stone —
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
II
[[v]]
[[n]]
5
[[n]]
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In death around thee — and their will
[[v]]
10
Shall overshadow thee: be still.
III
The night — tho’ clear — shall frown —
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given —
15
But their red orbs, without beam,
[[v]]
Which would cling to thee for ever.
IV
[[v]]
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish —
20
Now are visions ne’er to vanish —
[[v]]
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more — like dew-drop from the grass. [page 73:]
V
[[n]]
The breeze — the breath of God — is still —
25
Shadowy — shadowy — yet unbroken,
[[n]]
[1827-39]
Title: The Spirits of the Dead (B)
5 that / thy (B)
10 overshadow / then o’ershadow (B)
18 After this B adds:
But ’twill leave thee as each star
With the dewdrop flies afar.
19 shalt / can'st (B)
21-22 Transposed in B
5-10 Compare “Dream-Land,” lines 31-88.
6 Campbell (Poems, p. 159) has a long note on the proverb “Never less alone than when alone,” which has been traced back to Cicero, and, in English, to Shakespeare — and was used by Byron.
23 Compare “The City in the Sea,” lines 38-41, and “The Valley of Unrest,” lines 11-19.
26 See “Stanzas” (1827), line 24, for “a symbol and a token.”
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Notes:
None.
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[S:1 - TOM1P, 1969] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Spirits of the Dead)