The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1881-01-05
Edgar A. Poe's Raven.
AN ESSAY BY PROF. Il. HILLS.

| have chosen for the subject o
this essay the very mystical and beau
tiful poem" Poe's Raven" have
not taken this poem for the purpose
of criticising or praising, but if poss
ible, by calling forth the thoughts O
other minds, we may be the better
able to understand it in all it's beau
ty and truth What, then, does the
poem mean2 Who or what is the
lost Lenore? Who is this " ominoue
bird of yore" made to speak +? and
| whom or what dees it represent
| These were questions that always
! presented themselves to me in read
| ing the poem, and would not be sat
isfed with the answer that 20 Lenore
was his lost love" Something deep
er, more noble than losing the whole
love of pure woman must be meant
in the closing lines
I" And my soul from out that shadow that lies float
ing on the floor,
| Shall be lifted-nevermore
Something more than is contained
in the sad refrain must be meant to
cause the author to say:
/" Bird or fsnd ~ shrieked, upstarting-
g Take thy beak from out my heart, take thy form
from OF my door?"
What, then, is the meaning? It
is said by an American writer that
every author who is worthy the
name, embodies his own personal
traits in his writings, and / suppose
we could draw a pretty correct pic
ture Of the blind old bard who wrote
Paradise Lost, or even tell pretty
closely how he lived in his family
from this one poem alone Would
the phrenologist ask anything bet
ter than his own works to toreconstruct
the head of Byron, or tell of his i'm
petuosity, rashness and wickedness 4?
And so from this one poem alone we
would draw the life picture of the
brightest imaginative mind this
country has ever produced. A mind
which, if controlled by the principles
Of truth, would have won name as
lasting for its possessor as it is con-
fessed now it made him gifted. Poe
was Pantheist in religion, a cynic
in society and debauche in life, and
from all these causes he was made
that
unhappy master whom unnerciful disaster
Followed fast aud followed faster, till his songs
burden bore,
Till the dirges Of lis hope that melancholy burden
bore,
Of RaYer-nsvermore.
L 4
poem in this way: Lenore was Faith.
Faith in God and faith in man. The
Raven is Doubt, which is skepticism,
and always leads to unsatisfying
gloom and corresponding misery.
notice now that doubt enters in
to the first stanza and under peculiar
guise, namely, while he pondered
weak and weary DER many quaint
and curious volume offorgetten lore"
which lore was from the old phi
losophers, and treats of the first
principles of skepticism, and while
he was nodding, nearly tapping in
the prescribed mode of thought and
feeling, common to his times and
true to the best teachings of his ma
ture, suddenly there came a tapping
at the door of his heart-the secret,
inner door-saying to him, Why
trust in man or their PHILOSOPHERS
longer, for their ignorance only de
ceives you-Only can deceive you?"
This seemed so plausible to man
who thought he could know all
things by the power of his intellect,
that he opened wide the door to
doubt only to find himself "peering
into darkness, wondering, fearing,
dreaming dreams no mortal ever
dared to dream before" But the
darkness gave no token of comfort
The stiffness was unbroken by any
cheering ray of hope, and the only
word there spoken was call from
his frightened heart upon the faith
be had banished,---the whispered
word Lenore, which he whispered
and got only the response always
made dismal by being echoed back
to heart already void of trust in
humanity, Having once taken the
raven into his secret chamber, it be-
came a fixture there and would not
leave at his bidding, but remained
where its own blaclness and shadow
cast such gloom as could not be
hanished. Not only this, but not be-
ing satisfied with the present gloom
cast by its now unwanted presence,
it would Danish the only gift left in
the box by Pandora to poor mortals
When Poe here asks, if
hope ia taken away from him here,
whether he shall not in that other
world clasp rare and radiant mai
den whom the angels name Lenore,
though nameless here forever more,
the sad response of the raven is, new
er, nevermore. Do not we see here
the picture of the man, as he walked
the streets through pitiless storms,
beating tho air with his arms, and
cursing himself furiously as his biog-
raphers tell us he did do? His pray
ers were always for Others, never for
himself; and he continually repeated
that there was no hope for him, that
he was losA etgrnally losS Ills Pal'
Et f5.s. -re