Edgar Allan Poe to Joseph B. Boyd — 1839-12-25

Edgar Allan Poe to Joseph B. Boyd — 1839-12-25 Local historical letter reading from the Poe Society’s manuscript-text page, with modern correction glosses and website material excluded. The scholarly checklist documents an early printed witness in American Art Association, Hall sale, April 20–21, 1921, part 3, item 494 (facsimile). This record preserves the electronic letter text, not a scan of that printed witness or the autograph. The letter includes Poe’s autograph copy of Silence — A Sonnet; it is retained as part of the correspondence. Typography is simplified. The transcription has not been independently proofread word by word. Philadelphia, Dec 25 th 1839 Dr Sir, I have only to urge a world of pressing engagements as an excuse for not sooner attending to your very flattering request of November the fifteenth. It will now give me great pleasure to copy, as you desire, one of my own poems — selecting a Sonnet for brevity's sake. Silence — A Sonnet. There are some qualities — some incorporate things — That have a double life — life aptly made The type of that twin entity which springs From matter and light — evinced in solid and shade. There is a two-fold Silence — sea and shore — Body and soul. One dwells in desert places Newly with grass oergrown. Some solemn graces, Some human memories (a tearful lore) Render him terrorless — his name's “No More”. He is the corporate Silence — dread him not. No power hath he of evil in himself. But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!) Bring thee to meet his shadow — (nameless elf, Who haunteth the dim regions where hath trod No foot of man) — commend thyself to God! With every sentiment of respect, I am Yr Obt S t Edgar A Poe. To Joseph B. Boyd, Esquire Cincinnati, Ohio.