But waft the angel on her flight
With a Pean of old days!

Let no bell toll!

Lest her sweet soul,

Amid its hallow'd mirth,

Should catch the note

As it doth float

Up from the damnéd earth —

To friends above, from fiends below,
Th' indignant ghost is riven —
From grief and moan

To a gold throne

Beside the King of Heaven!"

The following are the variations of Broadway Journal from 1845:

I. 2 river; (,) IV. 7 grief (moan).

The Lorimer Graham variations of the text from 1845, not seen or not adopted by Griswold, are as follows: Substitute for IV. :

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise.

“But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!

"Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.

"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant

ghost is riven

"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven— "From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”

NOTE.- Mrs. S. H. Whitman, in "Edgar Poe and his Critics," asserts, without further evidence, that in a version of "Lenore" published in Russell's Magazine, the name "Helen occurs instead of "Lenore.' -ED.

Col. T. W. Higginson ("Short Studies of American Authors," p. 15) remarks: "Never in American literature, I think, was such a fountain of melody flung into the air as when 'Lenore' first appeared in The Pioneer;' and never did fountain so drop downward as when Poe re-arranged it in its present form. The irregular measure had a beauty as original as that of Christabel;' and the lines had an ever-varying cadence of their own, until their author himself took them and cramped them into couplets. What a change from

Peccavimus!

But rave not thus !

And let the solemn song

Go up to God so mournfully that she may feel no wrong!

to the amended version portioned off in regular lengths."

EDITOR'S Note.

The innocent Lenore. the queenliest dead was done to death by slanderous eyes and tongues. Lenore has gone to Heaven, taking with her hope, leaving her lover wild for her who should have been his bride.

This merits no dirge but a pœan This lyric of grief has again for its theme the death of a beautiful young

woman.

Poe's fondness for the name is shown by its recurrence in "The Raven," and in "Eleonora," one of the best of his prose-poems.

THE VALLEY OF UNREST.

Page 55.

AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW, APRIL, 1845; 1845; BROADWAY JOURNAL, II. 9. | THE VALLEY NIS, 1831; SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, FEB

RUARY, 1836.

Text, 1845.

The earliest version (1831) runs as follows:

It is called the valley Nis.
And a Syriac tale there is

Thereabout which Time hath said

Shall not be interpreted.

Something about Satan's dart

Something about angel wings

Much about a broken heart ·

All about unhappy things :

But

the valley Nis" at best
Means "the valley of unrest.”
Once it smil'd a silent dell

Where the people did not dwell,
Having gone unto the wars-
And the sly, mysterious stars,
With a visage full of meaning,

O'er the unguarded flowers were leaning:

Or the sun ray dripp'd all red
Thro' the tulips overhead,
Then grew paler as it fell
On the quiet Asphodel.

Now the unhappy shall confess
Nothing there is motionless :
Helen, like thy human eye
There th' uneasy violets lie
There the reedy grass doth wave
Over the old forgotten grave-
One by one from the tree top
There the eternal dews do drop
There the vague and dreamy trees
Do roll like seas in northern breeze
Around the stormy Hebrides
There the gorgeous clouds do fly,
Rustling everlastingly,

Through the terror-stricken sky,
Rolling like a waterfall

O'er the horizon's fiery wall.

There the moon doth shine by night

With a most unsteady light

There the sun doth reel by day

"Over the hills and far away.”

The following are the variations of the Southern Literary Messenger from the above:

Line 4 east (cap.) 6 Far away (One and all, too) 10 interpreted. (:) 11 dart (o. d.) 22 the (th') 22 leaning: (,) 23 sun ray (sun-ray) 24 the (tall)

27-46: Now each visiter shall confess
Nothing there is motionless :
Nothing save the airs that brood
O'er the enchanted solitude,
Save the airs with pinions furled
That slumber o'er the valley-world.

No wind in Heaven, and lo! the trees
Do roll like seas, in Northern breeze,
Around the stormy Hebrides

No wind in Heaven, and clouds do fly,
Rustling everlastingly,

Through the terror-stricken sky,
Rolling, like a waterfall

O'er th' horizon's fiery wall

And Helen, like thy human eye,

Low crouched on Earth, some violets lie,
And, nearer Heaven, some lilies wave
All banner-like, above a grave.
And, one by one, from out their tops
Eternal dews come down in drops,
Ah, one by one, from off their stems
Eternal dews come down in gems!

Variations of the American Whig Review from the text. Line 6 flowers, (o. c.) 18 rustle (rustles) 19 Uneasily (Unceasingly).

After 27 insert :

They wave; they weep; and the tears as they well From the depths of each pallid lily bell,

Give a trickle and a tinkle and a knell.

The Broadway Journal shows no variations from the

text.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

A lonely grave in a valley of unrest where trees are eternally without wind and where clouds rustle through unquiet heavens. This fantastic lyric has been connected with the Ragged Mountains and has been used as the germ of a story located in that romantic region.