XIVTHE POETRY OF POE

“My first object (as usual) was originality,” said Poe, in discussing the versification of “The Raven.” It is a remarkable fact that the two great poets of America—Poe and Whitman—were two of the most deliberately original poets of the nineteenth century—in English at least. They were both conscious frontiersmen of poetry, drawn to unmapped territories, settlers on virgin soil. This may help to explain some of their imperfections. Each of them gives us the impression of a genius rich but imperfectly cultivated. Different though they were from each other, they resembled each other in a certain lack of the talent of order, of taste, of “finish.” They were both capable of lapses from genius into incompetence, from beauty into provincialism, to an unusual degree. A contemporary critic said of Poe that he had not talent equal to his genius. Neither had Whitman. In the greatest poets, genius and talent go hand in hand. Poe seldom wrote a poem in which his mood seems to haveattained its perfect expression. His poetry does not get near perfection even in the sense in which Coleridge’s fragments do. It seems, as a rule, like a first sketch for greater things. HisComplete Poems, indeed, is one of the most wonderful sketch-books of a man of genius in literature.

Poe himself attributed the defects of his work to lack of leisure rather than to lack of talent. “Events not to be controlled,” he said in the preface to the 1845 edition of his poems, “have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose but a passion, and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not—they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the petty compensations, or the more petty commendations, of mankind.” Other poets, however, who have lived in as bitter circumstances as Poe, have written an incomparably greater body of good poetry. There was in him some flaw that kept him, as a rule, from being more than a great beginner. It may have been partly due to theatrical qualities that he inherited from his actress mother. Again and again he mingles the landscape of dreamland with the tawdry grandeur of the stage. He takesa footlights view of romance when, having begun “Lenore” with thelines——

Ah, broken is the golden bowl!—the spirit flown for ever!—Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river

Ah, broken is the golden bowl!—the spirit flown for ever!—

Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river

he continues:

And, Guy de Vere, hastthouno tear?—weep now, or never more.

This, no doubt, was in tune with the fashionable romance of the day, but Poe’s romantic conceptions at times were those of one who was especially entranced by stage trappings. He made his heroines rich and highborn as well as beautiful. In “Lenore” he cries:

Wretches, ye loved her for her wealth, and hated her for her pride!

In “The Sleeper” he speaks of:

The crested pallsOf her grand family funerals.

The crested palls

Of her grand family funerals.

In “Annabel Lee” he made the very angels heroes of the green-room:

Her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me.

Her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me.

On the other hand, Poe’s theatricalism, though it explains some of the faults of his poetry, leavesunexplained the fact that he has cast a greater spell on succeeding poets than has even so great a theatrical genius as Byron. Poe is one of those poets who are sources of poetry. He discovered—though not without forerunners such as Coleridge—a new borderland for the imagination, where death and despair had a new strangeness. He seems to have reached it, not through mere fancy, as his imitators do, but through experience. When he was a youth he worshipped Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother of one of his friends. She went mad and died, and for some time after her death Poe used to haunt her tomb by night, and “when the autumnal rains fell and the winds wailed mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest, and came away most regretfully.” J. H. Ingram and other writers have found in these “solitary churchyard vigils” the clue to “much that seems strange and abnormal in the poet’s after life.” Love overshadowed by death, beauty overshadowed by death, remained the recurrent theme of his verse. It is the theme of his supreme poem, “Annabel Lee,” with its haunting close:

In the sepulchre there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Poe was a poet for whom life was darkened byexperience and illuminated only by visions. In the beginning, romance

loves to nod and singWith drowsy head and painted wing,Among the green leaves as they shakeFar down within some shadowy lake.

loves to nod and sing

With drowsy head and painted wing,

Among the green leaves as they shake

Far down within some shadowy lake.

In time, however, this born day-dreamer can find no comfort in day-dreaming:

Of late, eternal Condor yearsSo shake the very Heaven on highWith tumult as they thunder by,I have no time for idle caresThrough gazing on the unquiet sky.And when an hour with calmer wingsIts down upon my spirit flings—That little time with lyre and rhymeTo while away—forbidden things!—My heart would feel to be a crimeUnless it trembled with the strings.

Of late, eternal Condor years

So shake the very Heaven on high

With tumult as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Through gazing on the unquiet sky.

And when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings—

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden things!—

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings.

There is a terrible sincerity in Poe’s sense of the presence of death. His vision of mortal men, at least, was not theatrical in its gloom:

Mimes, in the form of God on high,Mutter and mumble low,And hither and thither fly—Mere puppets they, who come and goAt bidding of vast formless thingsThat shift the scenery to and fro,Flapping from out their Condor wingsInvisible Woe!

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Woe!

Poe and Whitman were both poets preoccupied with the thought of death, but, whereas Whitman forced himself to praise it, Poe was in revolt against it as the ultimate tyrant. He saw it as the one thing that made dreadful those enchanted islands, those enchanted valleys, those enchanted palaces in which, for him, so much of the beauty of the world took refuge. He could not reconcile himself to a world that was governed by mortality. There is the wistfulness of the exile from a lost Paradise running through his verse. He is essentially a man for whom the spiritual universe exists. His angels and demons may not resemble the angels and demons of the churches—may, indeed, be little more than formulæ in his dreamland. But they are at least the formulæ of a poet into whose dreams has come the rumour of immortality. He cannot believe that the City of Death, with its awful stillness, can last for ever—that city where

Shrines and palaces and towers(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)Resemble nothing that is ours.Around, by lifting winds forgot,Resignedly beneath the skyThe melancholy waters lie.

Shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

He feels that somewhere Eldorado is to be found, as it is by the knight who sought it:

And as his strengthFailed him at lengthHe met a pilgrim shadow—“Shadow,” said he,“Where can it be—This land of Eldorado?”“Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,”The shade replied—“If you seek for Eldorado!”

And as his strengthFailed him at lengthHe met a pilgrim shadow—“Shadow,” said he,“Where can it be—This land of Eldorado?”

And as his strength

Failed him at length

He met a pilgrim shadow—

“Shadow,” said he,

“Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,”The shade replied—“If you seek for Eldorado!”

“Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,”

The shade replied—

“If you seek for Eldorado!”

It is true that his vision, whether of life or immortality, has something of the incoherence of the landscape of his “Dreamland”:

Mountains toppling evermoreInto seas without a shore.

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore.

If his imagination passes “out of space, out of time,” it is on the wings of trance rather than of faith. At the same time, his dreams would not have made so strong an appeal to generations ofreaders if they had been mere sensational fancies, and had not seemed to wander in a wider universe than we are conscious of in our everyday life. They cannot be dismissed as the visions of a drugged man. They are the questionings of a spirit.

It may be that, like some of the decadents of Europe, Poe was preyed upon by a demon—that he was an outcast poet in whose sky was

The cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.

The cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

But in the best of the decadents the soul survived; and if they have a place in literature it is because they have left a record of the travels of the prodigal soul in a far country. Poe, though not sharing their decadence, is also the poet of a far country. That loveliest of his poems (if we except “Annabel Lee”), “To Helen”—what is it but a triumphant cry of return? Unlike “The Raven,” it is a poem that never loses its beauty with repetition. “Annabel Lee” may be the fullest expression of his genius, but “To Helen” is the most exquisite. Even to write it down, hackneyed though it is, renews one’s delight:

Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o’er the perfumed sea,The weary, way-born wanderer boreTo his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was GreeceAnd the grandeur that was Rome.Lo! in yon brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee standThe agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy Land!

Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o’er the perfumed sea,The weary, way-born wanderer boreTo his own native shore.

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o’er the perfumed sea,

The weary, way-born wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was GreeceAnd the grandeur that was Rome.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee standThe agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy Land!

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand

The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

Here, as nowhere else, Poe achieved coherent and consummate grace of form. Here, if almost nowhere else, his talent was equal to his genius.

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