Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1860-04-27
Edgar Allen Poe.

Edgar Allen Poe.
And the raven, never fitting stin ID stng stI 10 sn,
On the pad bust Of Palas just above my chamber door
And his eyes have all the seeming Of demon that
dreaming; <
And the lamplght DER him streaming throws his shsdo
on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow, tha, lies floating
| tho floor,
| Shall be lifted, Nevermore,
| -zns Karen
Edgar Allen Poe! How the heart throb
with emotion at the bare mention of such
name, and how quickly is the eye dimme,
with tears when we reflect upon life so brief
so brilliant, and so melancholy in its sad ter
mination Few men have ever died, arount
whose memories cluster so many mnglet
recollections fpleasure and pain. Was ther,
ever life in which good and evil, high intel
ligence and strange Inconsistency, fond ex
pectation and blAsted hope were so strangely
blended? That Poe was a man of extraordi
nary endowment, no man can doubt; that ht
was genius, in the fullest sense Of the word
all have acknowledged; that his style is char.
actcrized by peculiar powers Of ANALYSIS, and
unequalled fertility Of immaginatian, is incon
trovertable.
Poe's disposition was peculiarly opposed
to any thing like submission. The yoke Of
restraint was ever too CALLING for his rash and
fiery nature. With feelings like these and
an almost ungovernable temper, he became
the adopted son Of Mr.. Allen, who never new.
er curhed in the least the impetuous emotions,
never denied a single wish, never thwarted a
single plan; but gave loose rcins to his every
passion, and furnished him the means oi
gratifying eyery lust.
For reasons which we are not prepared to
give. Mr.. Allen very suddenly disenhcrited
Poe OF every cent Of an estate which he had
been taught to consider his own, and he was
thus thrown upon the cold charities of a
colder world. How bitter was the draueht
he was forced to drink Is it strange that a
disposition once so bouyant, mind filled
with such bright anticipations should then
have become as cold as lifeless as a block of
marble? 1t is strange that heart whose
every throb once was Joy, should have been
ground to POWDER" beneath weight so
Mr.. Allen, the character Of Edgar Poe was
completely changed.
he who once loved to mingle with the youth
and beauty of both sexes, then became the
cynic and the heartless misanthrope. All
without spoke to him only Of the hollowness
and deception of the human heart; within,
the scorpion fang of remorse lashed him to
almost fiendish madness.
" The future stretched before him,
All dark and barren q rainy sea-"
No sun Of Hope fringed with silver bor-
der the dark cloud Despair which lowered
over his pathway.
Poe, as magazinist, has few equals, no
superiors At one time he was connected
with some of the principle magazines in this
country, and not only won for himself wide
spread and enviable reputation, but swelled
the list of subscribers to the magazines over
which he presided, to an almost unparalleled
extent
As writer of romance and novelist, Poe
possessed style peculiarly his own. With
morose, melancholy, and high-wrought en-
thnsiasn, he was ever dreamer, and dealt
but little with the sober realities and stern
conflicts Of every day life. His characters
are either drawn from the angels Of heaven
or the demons of hell His style is pure
animated, elegant-frequently sublime. His
principle faculty seems to be in the perfect
control he exercises over the emotions of his
read zrs, and the complete knowledge of every
fsculty of the mind. In reading his Fall of
the house of Usher" you first feel faint
emotion of fear, which soon grows to awe,
finally such an intense feeling of dread and
horror creeps over you that the book is clasp
ed more tightly in your grasp, the check
pales, the eyes glare, the limbs tremble, the
teeth chatter, and every hair of your head
stands erect. In this state of vivid and in
tense feeling the house is suddenly swallowed
up-no sound is heard-the fierce war Of the
elements ceases, the calm complaccncy of
your feelings again returns, and YOU find it
almost impossible to realize the extreme
height to which the rehearsal Of an act which
only transpircd in the mind Of the writer had
carried you.
Poe's first article in prose" MSS. found
in Bottle was published in 1883, when
he was only twenty-five years of age. The
appearance OF the youthful author, at that
time, was particularly poverty stricken. His
cheek was pale his eye sunken, his garments
thread bare and tattered, no covering shelter
ed his head, none protected his feet. The
poverty of his apparel served only to show to
a much greater advantage the richness and
luster Of an eye which bespoke the no ordi-
nary amount of intellect that glowed beneath
the matted locks. Genius in rags! Oh,
what sccne
Let us glance for moment at Poe as
poet. The rich rythm, the frequently sub
Unity Of his style, the tender pathos which
hany of his roductions-together with his
unequalled knowledge of the Poetic Princi-
pie have deservedly ranked him among
the first poets Of America-if not make him
THE poet. His touching, beautiful, "Annibel
Lee" has awakened response in almost
every heart, and found welcome at every
fireside where the English language is spoken.
No piece Of poetry in the English language
surpasses "Thc Bells y for peculiar adapta-
ton of sound to sense. Now we hear, breath
ing from its well constructed numbers, the
life-inspiring sleigh-bell, now the mellow
note of the wedding bells, as they bespeak q
world Of happiness to the newly married
couple; suddenly the loud alarm bells break
forth in their wild jingle, as they tell their
startling tale of terror in i" the affiighted ear
Of night" and awakened the unconscious
slumbcrer to the awfulness Of his situation
But his Raven" immortalized him.
None had ever dared to attempt such pro-
duction. We have never met in any article
such somhre loneliness and ncver-ending de-
spair-but portrait Of the authors feelings.
The quiet solitude Of the night on which il
was doubtless composed, tells Of the still
greater solitude that brooded oysS mis- heart
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