"A Passer-by."

75

This volume-published, apparently, at the close of the year is stated to have been for private circulation. It contains only sixty-six pages, and many of these are merely extra leaves and bastard titles. The real contents include "Al Aaraaf," substantially as now printed, and prefixed to it, but unnamed, the sonnet now styled "To Science." The present version of "Tamerlane" -then dedicated to John Neal-follows, and thereafter succeed ten "Miscellaneous Poems." These included the lines now known as "Romance," but then called " Preface; the song, "I saw thee on

ས་

thy bridal day;" "The Lake," from the suppressed volume of 1827, and seven other pieces. Six of these latter are, save some slight variations, as still published, but in the following lines, "To M——,” appear three stanzas subsequently omitted, as well as a few trifling alterations. The whole poem, as it

stands in the 1829 edition, reads thus:

"Oh! I care not that my earthly lot

Hath little of earth in it—
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute.

"I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I--

But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer-by.

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Forbidden Things.

"It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing-strange! with tears-
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years—

""Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs,
Which have withered as they rose,
Lie dead on my heart-strings

With the weight of an age of snows.

"Nor that the grass-oh! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown-
But that, while I am dead, yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone."

These somewhat indefinite stanzas are typical of the whole of the fugitive pieces in the little book, and are, as usual, characteristic of his life and idiosyncrasies; -morbid sensibility to kindness, haunting regrets for an unprofited past, and a hopeless, utterly despairing dread of the future. These "Miscellanous Poems," labelled

"My nothingness-my wants-
My sins-and my contritions "-

are hinted at, in "Romance," as "forbidden things” in ordinary hours, and were, but too probably, occupations interdicted by his godfather. But from some suppressed lines in another piece, inscribed to an unknown person, it is clear that no amount of authority would

Spirits of the Dead."

77

have constrained him from pursuing his own subjects. He exclaims, after bewailing his early hopes, and alluding to an intention of disappearing altogether:

"So young! ah no-not now——
Thou hast not seen my brow,
But they tell thee I am proud-
They lie-they lie aloud-
My bosom beats with shame
At the paltriness of name
With which they dare combine
A feeling such as mine-
Nor Stoic? I am not :
In the tenor of my lot

I laugh to think how poor
That pleasure "to endure!"
What

shade of Zeno !-I!

Endure -no-no-defy."

And that he did defy all parental, or assumed parental, power to suppress his poetic aspirations, it is easy to comprehend. But in "Spirits of the Dead" a more faithful representation of his self-styled "funereal mind" is to be found-a very portrayal in one stanza, wherein he alludes to the living being overshadowed by the will of the dead. It was, indeed, a never-ending phantasy with him, that death was not absolute separation from life-that the dead were not wholly heedless of the deeds of the living.

But the two long poems constituted the chief value

of the 1829 edition. “Al Arâf," or "Al Aaraaf," as the poet preferred styling it, is designed by the Mohammedan imagination as an abode wherein a gentle system of purgatory is instituted for the benefit of those who, though too good for hell, are not fitted for heaven

66

'Apart from heaven's eternity—and yet how far from hell!" Poe chose to locate this intermediate region in a star discovered, or rather examined, by Tycho Brahe (and which it is now conjectured must have been a sun in course of conflagration), that appeared suddenly in the heavens, and after having rapidly attained a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter, gradually disappeared and has never since been seen. This poem of "Al Aaraaf” abounds in happy and melodious passages, and has never yet received its due meed of praise: some portions of the lyrical intermedial chant are exquisitely and musically onomatopoeial in construction. The revised version of "Tamerlane," too, given in this volume, is in every respect a great advance upon the previous printed draft besides its enhanced poetic value, it is also far superior as a work of art, improved punctuation and indented lines affording evidence of more skilled handicraft than that employed upon the former copy.

* Vide Mr. R. Proctor's Myths and Marvels of Astronomy.

CHAPTER VIII.

WEST POINT.

IN 1802, the founders of the young Republic saw the necessity of officering their troops with skilled soldiers, and, with a foresight their children have not always shown, instituted the West Point Military Academy— a military school in many respects equal to the best of Europe. Education and subsistence are gratuitous, and a monthly allowance of twenty-eight dollars is made to each of the cadets, so as to place them, as it were, beyond the necessity of appealing to relatives for anything. The course of study covers a period of four years, during which the student is placed under a discipline little less rigid than that of a soldier on active duty. The number of cadets is limited, and very great interest is required, as will be readily comprehended, in order to obtain a nomination.

It was, doubtless, the prospect or promise of receiving a nomination to this institution that induced Poe to return to Mr. Allan's. General Scott, and other

influential friends, interested themselves on the youth's