from, Mrs. Browning. The rhythm is the same, trochaic; the metre is the same, octameter; the first four lines of the stanza which Poe uses throughout the 'Raven' are exactly identical with Mrs. Browning's stanza, the first and third lines having internal feminine rhyme at the fourth foot, and the second and fourth having single masculine rhymes. The only difference is that Poe has added another internal rhyme in the fourth line. He has then added a fifth line (always in part a repetition of the fourth and ending with the same word or words), and the refrain. Again to adopt Poe's method of comparison, one might note that in the first line of Poe's third stanza and of Mrs. Browning's fourth, the same word, 'curtain' occupies the same, and the most prominent, place, that it is matched in each case with the same rhyme-word,' uncertain,' that the curtain is in each case a purple curtain, and in each case a vaguely waving curtain, and that in each case it produces a murmuring or rustling sound-and finally, that all these coincidences occur within the compass of one line, and are as numerous and peculiar as those which Poe insists upon, in what he calls the brief compass of eight or sixteen lines, in his article against Longfellow and Aldrich (see the Longfellow War in the Virginia Edition of Poe's Works, vol. xii, pp. 41-106, especially pp. 76-82). Other minute resemblances might be pointed out, such as the mention in both poems of the lattice-window; but this would be less profitable than to recognize the essential originality of Poe's conception and expression. He was a frank admirer of Mrs. Browning's poetry, and dedicated his chief volume, the Raven and Other Poems, to her: To the Noblest of her Sex-to the Author of "The Drama of Exile"-to Miss Elizabeth Barrett of England - I dedicate this volume, with the most enthusiastic admiration and with the most sincere esteem.' It is to be noted also that Mrs. Browning was more fond than any other English poet of the refrain. On Poe's use of the refrain, and also of the repetend, on which point he may be best compared with Coleridge, see C. A. Smith's Repetition and Parallelism in English Verse, J. P. Fruit's The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry, etc.

However much of the 'Raven' may have been suggested by Poe's predecessors, it suggested even more to his followers. The most important instance of this (not forgetting his influence on Baudelaire and Mallarmé) is perhaps to be found in its having suggested to Rossetti The Blessed Damozel.' See W. M. Rossetti's Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family Letters, etc., 1895, vol. i, p. 107: "The Blessed Damozel" was written with a view to its insertion in a manuscript family magazine, of brief vitality. In 1881 Rossetti gave Mr. Caine an account of its origin, as deriving from his perusal and admiration of Edgar Poe's" Raven." "I saw" (this is Mr. Caine's version of Rossetti's statement) "that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and I determined to reverse the condition, and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in heaven." Along with "The Raven" and other poems by Poe, "Ulalume," "For Annie," "The Haunted Palace," and many another were a deep well of delight to Rossetti in all these years. He once wrote a parody of "Ulalume." I do not rightly remember it, nor has it left a vestige behind.'

On the time and place of composition of the 'Raven,' see the long note in the Stedman-Woodberry edition of the Poems, pages 156-9, and the authorities there cited; the last pages of chapter ix in Harrison's Life of Poe; and Ingram's The Raven, referred to above.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

"T is some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door

Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;

This it is and nothing more.'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

'Sir,' said I, 'or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

20

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you'— here I opened wide the door;

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore !'

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word 'Lenore!' Merely this and nothing more.

30

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'

Quoth the Raven' Nevermore.'

'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting

'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken !

100

Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!' Quoth the Raven' Nevermore.'

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore !1

For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long

Shines, bright and strong,

Astarte within the sky,

While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye

While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

ULALUME 2

1845.

THE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Here once, through an alley Titanic,
cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was vol-
canic

Of

As the scoriac rivers that roll

As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

20

But our thoughts they were palsied and

sere

Our memories were treacherous and

sere

"Poe's child-wife Virginia died in January of 1847, and this poem was published in December. See the biographical sketch.

40

And I said 'She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never
dies

And has come past the stars of the Lion

To point us the path to the skies-
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,

To shine on us with her bright eyes
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes.'

Said Sadly this star I mistrust Her pallor I strangely mistrust: Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly! let us fly! - for we must.' In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dust In agony sobbed, letting sink her

50

Plumes till they trailed in the dust Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

60

1847.

I SAW thee once- once only years ago: I must not say how many · but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,

1 The occasion of Poe's first sight of Mrs. Whitman is romantically described as follows:

'Poe caught a glimpse of a white figure wandering in a moonlit garden in Providence, on his way from Boston, when he visited that city to deliver a poem before the Lyceum there. Restless, near midnight, he wandered from his hotel near where she lived, until he saw her walking in a garden. He related the incident afterwards in one of his most exquisite poems, worthy of himself, of her, and of the most exalted passion.' (Harrison's Life of Poe, p. 284.) See also Mrs. Whitman's Poems, and Woodberry's Life of Poe, pp. 308325.

10

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tip-
toe
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death -
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, en-
chanted

By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd-alas, in sor-
row!

20

His

1 It was shortly after this, during the summer, that Poe wrote the first rough draft of 'The Bells,' at Mrs. Shew's residence. One day he came in,' she records, and said, "Marie Louise, I have to write a poem; I have no feeling, no sentiment, no inspiration." hostess persuaded him to have some tea. It was served in the conservatory, the windows of which were open, and admitted the sound of neighboring church bells. Mrs. Shew said, playfully, Here is paper;' but the poet, declining it, declared, I so dislike the noise of bells to-night, I cannot write. I have no subject -I am exhausted.' The lady then took up the pen, and, pretending to mimic his style, wrote, The Bells, by E. A. Poe;' and then in pure sportiveness, The Bells, the little silver Bells,' Poe finishing off the stanza. She then suggested for the next verse, 'The heavy iron