APPENDIX

I

POEMS IN THE CHASE VOLUME

AMONG other poems attributed to Poe are those published in the "Miscellaneous Selections And Original Pieces In Prose And Verse. By Elizabeth Chase. Published For The Editor By E. J. Cole. Richard J. Metchett Printer. 1821."

This volume printed at Baltimore contains "Monody On The Death Of General Joseph Sterett By A Very Young Gentleman Of Baltimore" and is signed "Edgar"; also twenty other pieces by the same hand "A Dream"; "To Sorrow"; "Twilight"; "A Lily"; "To Despondency," etc. A note to one states that they were composed by a youth of eighteen. The volume is often sold at the book-auction houses and by book dealers, where the following note is met with as an advertisement: "These poems have been attributed to Edgar Allan Poe, and the age given as 'eighteen' is possibly a fiction to disguise the extreme youth of the poet. Poe at this period was writing verse, though still at school, for it is related that about this time Mr. Allan showed a manuscript of poems written by him to the young ladies of Richmond. Though as yet no evidence has been brought forward to prove conclusively that these poems were the production of Poe, still upon a closer examination of them, and particularly after a comparison of them with the 'Fugitive Pieces' (written in 1821) and published with Tamerlane in 1827, it is difficult to believe otherwise than that they were by the same

hand. The decided preference in the choice of doleful and melancholy themes, the frequent employment of imagery drawn from the beauties of nature the heavens, flowers, etc., and the occasional reiteration of liquid sounds and alliterative combinations in the versification here exhibited, it seems, all tend to strengthen this belief.”

A study and investigation of these poems leads to the belief that they were probably written by an early Baltimore literary character whose last name was "Edgar." His family connections have been met with, but they could not give definite information. In efforts to trace the poems other similar poetry written about the same period was found by Baltimore poets. Here are some lines signed E. A. S., perhaps as Poesque as any in the Chase volume:

"What clouds my brow, O, ask me not,

It brings upon my mind, my care worn lot,
It tells me of the many joys I 've lost;
While on life's ocean tempest toss'd."

F. W. Thomas was studying law in Baltimore about 1821 and a close associate of Poe's brother William Henry Leonard Poe, who also resided in that city. He made no mention of these poems in his Recollections of E. A. Poe. If Poe had been about Baltimore in 1821 and especially publishing poetry Thomas would likely have had some knowledge of it.

II

The following are from The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette, New Series, July-December, 1829, John Neal, Editor:

"TO CORRESPONDENTS1 If E. A. P. of Baltimore whose lines about Heaven, though he professes to regard

1 September, 1829.

them as altogether superior to anything in the whole range of American poetry, save two or three trifles referred to, are, though nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense would but do himself justice, he might make a beautiful and perhaps a magnificent poem. There is a good deal here to justify such a hope:

Dim vales and shadowy floods,

And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that - drip all over.
The moonlight

And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light,

And then how deep! - Oh deep!
Is the passion of their sleep!

"He should have signed it, Bah!.

others."

We have no room for

"TO CORRESPONDENTS 1 Many papers intended for this number have been put aside for the next, . . . Among others are Night The Magician - Unpublished Poetry (being specimens of a book about to appear at Baltimore)."

66 UNPUBLISHED POETRY 2 The following passages are from the manuscript-works of a young author, about to be published in Baltimore. He is entirely a stranger to us, but with all their faults, if the remainder of Al Aaraaf and Tamerlane are as good as the body of the extracts here given — to say nothing of the more extraordinary parts, he will deserve 2 December, 1829.

1 November, 1829.

to stand high very high — in the estimation of the shining brotherhood. Whether he will do so however, must depend, not so much upon his worth now in mere poetry, as upon his worth hereafter in something yet loftier and more generous we allude to the stronger properties of the mind, to the magnanimous determination that enables a youth to endure the present, whatever the present may be, in the hope, or rather in the belief, the fixed, unwavering belief, that in the future he will find his reward. 'I am young,' he says in a letter to one who has laid it on our table for a good purpose, 'I am young - not yet twenty- am a poet- if deep worship of all beauty can make me one- and wish to be so in the more common meaning of the word. I would give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination. (By the way, do you remember or did you ever read the exclamation of Shelley about Shakspeare?— "What a number of ideas must have been afloat before such an author could arise!") I appeal to you as a man that loves the same beauty which I adore the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth-there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother it is not so much that they love one another, as that they both love the same parent - their affections are always running in the same direction the same channel and cannot help mingling. I am and have been, from my childhood, an idler. It cannot therefore be said that

"I left a calling for this idle trade,

A duty broke a father disobeyed".

I am about to publish a volume of "Poems," the greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking about "Heaven," 1

1 A poem by the author of "Al Aaraaf," mentioned in No. III: 168.

the editor of the Yankee says, "He might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent poem” (the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard). I am very certain that as yet I have not written either — but that I can, I will take oath if they will give me time.

The poems to be published are "Al Aaraaf” - "Tamerlane"

one about four, and the other about three hundred lines, with smaller pieces. "Al Aaraaf” has some good poetry, and much extravagance, which I have not had time to throw away.'

"Al Aaraaf" is a tale of another world the star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared and disappeared so suddenly- or rather, it is no tale at all. I will insert an extract, about the palace of its presiding Deity, in which you will see that I have supposed many of the lost sculptures of our world to have flown (in spirit) to the star "Al Aaraaf" a delicate place, more suited to their divinity.

Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthened air-
*Flashing, from Parian marble, that twin-smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair:
Of molten stars their pavement — such as fall
Thro' the ebon air besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution while they die
Adorning, then, the dwellings of the sky;
A dome by linked light 2 from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown;

A window of one circular diamond there

1 This will remind the reader of the following anecdote. Your sermon was too long sir - why did n't you make it shorter? I had n't time. — [Editor's Note.] Alluding to a prior part.

The idea of linked light is beautiful; but, the moment you read it aloud, the beauty is gone. To say link-ed light would be queer enough, notwithstanding Moore's "wreath-ed shell "; but to say link'd-light would spoil the rhythm. [Editor's Note.]