This Helen was Mrs. Whitman, "the Helen of a thousand dreams."

AN ENIGMA.

Page 110.

SONNET, UNION Magazine, MARCH, 1848.

Text, Griswold.

Variation of Sartain's Union Magazine from the text.
Line 10 tuckermanities (petrarchmanities).

EDITOR'S NOTE.

A very irregular sonnet so worded that the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, etc., give the name Sarah Anna Lewis (Anna Estelle Lewis "Stella." Cf. "A Valentine "').

FOR ANNIE.

Page III.

FLAG OF OUR UNION, 1849; HOME Journal, April 28, 1849; GRISWOLD, 1850.

Text, Home Journal (from text kindly furnished by Mr. Dix, editor of Home Journal.)

Variations of Griswold from the text.

IV. 5 ab (ah,) V. 3 ceased (ceased,) VIII. 7 sleep (?) XIII. 6 Now, (o. c.) XIV. 3 of (in).

EDITOR'S NOTE.

This poem of fifteen stanzas, of varying length and mainly iambic and anapæstic movement, is addressed to Annie, a lady of Lowell, Mass. (Mrs. Richmond). Note the use of flowers in this poem.

A VALENTINE.

Page 115.

FLAG OF OUR UNION, 1849; SARTAIN'S UNION MAGAZINE, MARCH, 1849.

Text, Union Magazine.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

This puzzle in verse contains the name Frances Sargent Osgood which is deciphered by taking the first letter of the first line, second letter of second line, etc.; Cf. "An Enigma" and "A Few Words on Secret Writing," "The Gold-Bug," etc.

ΤΟ

[From the Griswold MS.]

FOR her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes, |
Bright and expressive as the stars of Leda, |
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling, lies {
Upon this page, enwrapped from every reader. I
Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure |
Divine a talisman

· an amulet |

That must be worn at heart. Search well the meas

ure- -|

The words

the letters themselves. Do not forget | The smallest point, or you may lose your labor. | And yet there is in this no Gordian knot | Which one might not undo without a sabre | If one could merely comprehend the plot. ¡ Upon the open page on which are peering | Such sweet eyes now, there lies, I say, perdu ( A musical name oft uttered in the hearing | Of poets, by poets - for the name is a poet's ton. In common sequence set, the letters lying, Compose a sound delighting all to hear — Ah, this you'd have no trouble in descrying Were you not something of a dunce, my dear :And now I leave these riddles to their Seer.

Saturday, Feb. 14, 46.

(raised ornamented edge all round sheet, and bouquet of flowers left-hand upper corner.)

TO MY MOTHER.

Page 116.

FLAG OF OUR UNION, 1849.

Text, Griswold, as no files of this paper are known

EDITOR'S NOTE.

A beautiful tribute to Mrs. Clemm.

ANNABEL LEE.

Page 117.

NEW YORK TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 9, 1849; SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, NOVEMBER, 1849; SARTAIN'S UNION MAGAZINE, JANUARY, 1850.

NOTE.

-

Text, New York Tribune.

- In the article in the Tribune in which the poem is inserted, it is stated that the MS. was given the author by Poe "just before he left New York recently."-John R. Thompson makes the same statement as to himself in the Southern Literary Messenger.

Variations of the Home Journal from the text.

I. 2 sea (sea,) IV. 1 angels, (o. c.).
Stanzas in quotation marks in Home Journal.
The poem is introduced in Sartain's by the following

note :

"In the December number of our Magazine we announced that we had another poem of Mr. Poe's in hand, which we would publish in January. We supposed it to be his last, as we had received it from him a short time before his decease. The sheet containing our announcement was scarcely dry from the press, before we saw the poem, which we had bought and paid for, going the rounds of the newspaper press, into which it had found its way through some agency that will perhaps be hereafter explained. It appeared first, we believe, in the N. Y. Tribune. If we are not misinformed, two other Magazines are in the same predicament as ourselves. As the poem is one highly characteristic of the gifted and lamented author, and more particularly, as our copy of it differs in several places from that which has been already published, we have concluded to give it as already an

nounced."

Variations of Sartain's from the text.

I)

I. 2 sea (sea,) II. 1 I . . . she (She 2 sea (;) III. 5 kinsmen (kinsman) IV. Yes! —(!) V. 7 Lee: () VI. 1 beams, (0. c.) 3 rise, (o. c.) 5 so, (o. c.) 6-my (,) 6 darling-(,) 6 life (life,) 4 Lee: (;).

EDITOR'S NOTE.

This love lyric of beautiful movement celebrates the love of a youth and maiden separated by the death of the maiden. But not death or any other power could sever her from his love. Can this refer to aught save his love for Virginia? Mrs. Whitman thought it referred to herself. Mrs. S. A. Weiss informed Professor Harrison that Poe showed her the poem in 1849, and said it was composed years before his wife's death and had no reference to her.