Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume I — reading text

capital of Massachusetts in hopes of there finding a good market for his poetic labours, has not been, and probably never will be, discovered. At all events, the remembrances which he brought away with him of the “American Athens” were anything but pleasing, although then and there it was, apparently, that he made the acquaintance of his mother’s friends, the Ushers and the Wilsons, people whose names, at least, he made literary use of a few years later on. His first known literary venture, a tiny tome consisting of only forty pages, inclusive of Preface and Notes, although printed for publication, was “suppressed through circumstances of a private nature.” of the little book runs thus: — TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. BY A BOSTONIAN. “Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm,   And make mistakes for manhood to reform.” — Cowper. BOSTON: CALVIN S. THOMAS. 1827. What the private reasons were which caused the suppression of this most interesting memento of the poet’s early life can only be conjectured. It is not improbable that the too palpable nature of the autobiographical allusions, the doubtless obnoxious family researches which might be instituted by same, when the “Bostonian” of the title-page became identified with Edgar Allan Poe, and perchance the appeal for forgiveness foreshadowed in the motto from Cowper, all combined, or any one separately, may have led to the withdrawal of the book from circulation. In the Preface to this volume the youthful poet informs his anticipated readers, that the greater part of its contents “were written in the year 1821-22, when the author had not completed his fourteenth year. They were, of course, not intended for publication,” he remarks, and “why they are now published concerns no one but himself. Of the smaller pieces,” he deems “very little need be said: they, perhaps, savour too much of egotism, but they were written by one too young to have any knowledge of the world but from his own breast. In ‘Tamerlane,’ ” says the boy-poet, “he has endeavoured to expose the folly of even risking the best feelings of the heart at the shrine of Ambition. He is conscious that in this there are many faults (besides that of the general character of the poem) which, he flatters himself, he could with little trouble have corrected, but, unlike many of his predecessors, has been too fond of his early productions to amend them in his old age. He will not,” he confesses, “say that he is indifferent as to the success of these poems — it might stimulate him to other attempts — but he can safely assert that failure will not at all influence him in a resolution already adopted. This is challenging criticism — let it be so. Nos haec novimus esse nihil,” which concluding assertion, it may be remarked, he lived to prove the falsity of. Following the preface is “Tamerlane,” which occupies about seventeen pages of the booklet; it is a very different poem from that of Poe’s later years, known by the same title, and is replete with the Byronian influence. A more connected story is afforded by this version than by the later editions; the heroine is named as Ada, and the hero as Alexis, “Tamerlane” being deemed to have been only a nom-de-guerre of the famous warrior. Very many lines, indeed many whole stanzas, are filled with personal allusions to their author, as those alluding to his innate pride and habitual day-dreaming, and when referring to one loved and lost even before what passion was could be known. A belief in his own budding powers is certainly portrayed in such lines as — “The soul which feels its innate right The mystic empire and high power Given by the energetic might Of genius, at its natal hour” and “There is a power in the high spirit To know the fate it will inherit The soul, which knows such power, will still Find pride the ruler of its will” and allusion to those around him may readily be discovered by those sceptics “Who hardly will conceive That any should become ‘great,’ born In their own sphere — will not believe That they shall stoop in life to one Whom daily they are wont to see Familiarly — whom Fortune’s sun Hath ne‘er shone dazzlingly upon, Lowly — and of their own degree.” The idea which the young aspirant for fame enunciated in verse, he also devoted a note to, to demonstrate that it is very difficult “to make the generality of mankind believe that one with whom they are upon terms of intimacy shall be called in the world a ‘great man,’ ” and he deems the evident reason to be that “there are few great men, and that their actions are constantly viewed by the mass of people through the medium of distance. The prominent parts of their characters are alone noted; and those properties which are minute and common to every one, not being observed, seem to have no connection with a beat character.” The “Fugitive Pieces” which follow “Tamerlane” are all more or less tinged with the same cast of thought which from first to last characterised their author, although perhaps more indicative of the influence of contemporary poets than any of his later productions. Haunting sorrow, strong ambition, and mental rambles into the shadowy realms of dreamland, permeate these earliest verses of his boyhood as profusely as they do the musical refrains of his “lonesome latter years.” In one of these mental adumbrations he cries — “Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awaking till the beam Of an eternity should bring the morrow. Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ’Twere better than the cold reality Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been, still upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion from his birth.” The “Visit of the Dead,” which follows the piece quoted from, is evidently inspired by Byron’s “Dream,” whilst a succeeding lyric from the same source is confessedly entitled “Imitation;” some lines in it, however, are very characteristic, such as “A dark unfathomed tide Of interminable pride A mystery and a dream Should my early life seem.” The well-known little lyric, “A Dream,” which appeared in this edition, also contained this initial stanza — afterwards omitted-of significant self-allusion: “A wildered being from my birth, My spirit spurned control; But now, abroad on the wide earth, Where wanderest thou, my soul!” whilst the following penultimate piece, entitled “The Happiest Day,” to those who have thus far followed his story, cannot fail to be replete with autobiographical implication: The happiest day — the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known; The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown. Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween; But they have vanished long, alas! The visions of my youth have been — But let them pass. And pride, what have I now with thee? Another brow may ev‘n inherit The venom thou host poured on me Be still, my spirit. The happiest day — the happiest hour — Mine eyes shall see — have ever seen; The brightest glance of pride and power, I feel — have been. But were that hope of pride and power Now offered with the pain Ev‘n then I felt — that brightest hour I would not live again For on its wing was dark alloy, And as it fluttered, fell An essence, powerful to destroy A soul that knew it well.” With the lines entitled “The Lake” — the poem in the collection — Edgar Poe’s earliest venture closes. Taken altogether, and due allowance being made for some exceptional beauties and occasional originalities, there was not much in this 1827 volume to show the world that a new poetic power was about to arise; its author’s incomparable melody of rhythm and haunting power of words were not, as yet, fore shadowed. But this little book was suppressed, and its author, in all probability, recalled to Richmond. Whatever arrangements were made as to the future can only be speculated upon — the result was, however, unless the poet’s most solemn word is to be doubted, that he departed for Europe; and it is generally supposed, and by Poe was never contradicted, in order to offer his services to the Greeks against their Turkish tyrants. John H. Ingram, “Chapter 07,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 62-78 CHAPTER VII. EASTWARD HO! * TOWARDS the end of June, 1827, Edgar Poe would appear to have left the United States for Europe. It is very problematical whether he ever reached his presumed destination, the scene of the Greco-Turkish warfare, or ever saw aught, save in his “mind’s eye,” of “The glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.” The poems which he wrote either during his absence abroad or directly after his return home (such as “Al Aaraaf” and the “Sonnet to Zante”), contain allusions to Greece and its scenery that, in some instances, appear to be the result of personal reminiscence or impression; but with a mind of such identificative power as was Poe’s, these coincidences cannot be allowed to count for ranch. Hannay says — and how many will agree with him? “I like to think of Poe in the Mediterranean, with his passionate love of the beautiful, — in ‘the years of April blood,’ — in a climate which has the perpetual luxury of a bath — he must have had all his perceptions of the lovely intensified wonderfully. What he did there we have now no means of discovering.”* Poe had, undoubtedly, been excited by the heroic efforts the insurgent Greeks were making to throw off the yoke of their Turkish oppressors, and was, probably, emulous of Byron, whose example and Philhellenic poesy had aroused the chivalric aspirations of the boys of both continents, and whose writings, certainly, strongly influenced our hero’s own muse at this epoch of his life. Powell states that it was in conjunction with an acquaintance, Ebenezer Berling , that the youthful poet formed the design of participating in the Hellenic revolution, and conjectures that Poe went alone in consequence of his companion’s heart failing him.† Whatever may have been the truth with regard to Berling , at that time the lad’s most intimate and most trusted acquaintance, it must be remembered that he — unlike Poe the orphan — was a widow’s only son, and, doubtless, in delicate health, as he died not long after his friend’s departure. A most interesting and suggestive memento of the youthful crusader’s enthusiasm is to be found in an unknown translation by him of the famous “Hymn in honour of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.” As an excuse for the omission of the latter hero’s name, Poe pleads the impossibility of making it scan in English verse. If this juvenile version of these oft-translated verses does not display any very great poetic merit, it is at least as good, and, indeed, much better than many other renderings of the “Hymn” by well-known bards: “Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I‘ll conceal, Like those champions, devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave. “Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home — Where Achilles and Diomed rest. “In fresh myrtle my blade I‘ll entwine, Like Harmodius, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine A libation of Tyranny’s blood. “Ye deliverers of Athens from shame — Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs! Endless ages shall cherish your fame, Embalmed in their echoing songs.” Edgar Poe was absent from America on his Hellenic journey about eighteen months. The real adventures of his expedition have never, it is believed, been published. That he reached England is probable, although in the account of his travels, derived from his own dictation, that country was not alluded to any more than was the story of his having reached St. Petersburg, and there having been involved in difficulties that necessitated ministerial aid to extricate him. The latter incident is now stated to have occurred to his brother,