X. From more than fiends on earth, Of more than thrones in heaven XI. Therefore, to thee this night With a Pean of old days. The following are the variations of the Southern Literary Messenger from above: II. Dead (Her) VI. 4 bride. 4 (.) VII. 1 dead who (dead-who) 2 perfum'd there (motionless) 4 her hair (each tress) VIII. omit, IX. 1, 2 In June she died. in June Of life-beloved, and fair; | 3 Thou didst (But she did) X. 2 Thy life and love are (Helen, thy soul is) 3 untainted (all-hallowed). Stanzas not numbered in Southern Literary Messenger. The Pioneer version (1843) is as follows : — A saintly soul Glides down the Stygian river! And let the burial rite be read The funeral song be sung A dirge for the most lovely dead Hast thou no tear? Weep now or nevermore ! See, on yon drear And rigid bier, Low lies thy love Lenore ! "Yon heir, whose cheeks of pallid hue With tears are streaming wet, Sees only, through Their crocodile dew, A vacant coronet False friends! ye loved her for her wealth And, when she fell in feeble health, Ye blessed her that she died. Peccavimus! How shall the ritual, then, be read? For her most wrong'd of all the dead But rave not thus ! And let the solemn song Go up to God so mournfully that she may feel no wrong! The sweet Lenore Hath "gone before With young hope at her side, And thou art wild For the dear child That should have been thy bride For her, the fair And debonair, That now so lowly lies The life still there Upon her hair, "Avaunt ! - to-night My heart is light The death upon her eyes. No dirge will I upraise, To friends above, from fiends below, 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. upraise. No dirge will I "But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days! "Let no bell toll! - lest her sweet soul, amid its hal lowed mirth, "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. --- was The innocent Lenore the queenliest dead 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 pæan. 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, FEBRUARY, 1836. Text, 1845. The earliest version (1831) runs as follows: Far THE VALLEY NIS. away - far Far away away -as far at least Lies that valley as the day Down within the golden east- It is called the valley Nis. Thereabout which Time hath said - Something about Satan's dart O'er the unguarded flowers were leaning: |