The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1884-06-15

thing written by Poe, this matter appeared
to me to be entirely new. even though oyel
half century old.
In this volume, among the Answers tC
Correspondents" wherein is meted out tC
contributors hone and despair, under th'
respective headings OF accepted" anC
:" Declined" this appears:
III +. A. p. OF Baltimore. whose line
I about Heaven though he processes tc
regard them as altogether superior to any
thing in the whole range OF American
poetry, save two or three trifles referred
to, are, though nonsense. rather exquisite
nonsense, would but do justice to himself
he might make beautiful and perhaps
magnificent poem. There is good dea
here to Justify such hope:
| GDim wales and shadOwy floods,
And cloudy-lookng woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
| For the tears that drip all over.
The moonlight
Over hsmets, over halls,
Wherever they may be,
Ger the strange woods DER the sea-
| Ger spirits on the wing,
Oer every drowsv thing
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth or light;
And then how deep. oh, dep
Is the passion Of their sleep!'
He should have signed it 'Bah!' We
have no room for more"
One can readily imagine young Poe's
| feelings when he read that. And yet he
seemed to see bright side to it; for. in a
confident, gushing, egOtistical letter (Which
will appear further on), he considers 1t the
| first word OF encouragement he ever re-
members to have received.
Some months later. in the same volume
OF The Yankee for 1929, is an article en-
titled Unpublished Poetry" which re-
fers to Poe's first book, &" AL Aaraaf, Tam
erlane, and Minor Poems,".. published in
the latter part OF the same year by Hatch
& Cunning, Baltimore. and thus 1t reads
"The following passages are from the
Ms. works OF young author. about to be
published in Baltimore. He is entirely q
stranger to us, but with all their faults, II
the remainder OF al Aaraaf' and TIA
merlane' are Ps good as the body OF the
extracts here given, to say nothing OF the
more extraordinary parts, he will deserve
to stand high, very high, in the estimation
of the shining brotherhood. Whether he
| ,pW do so, however, must depend not so
much upon his worth now in mere poetry
as upon his worth hereafter in something
lofty 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 fixed, unwavering belief that in the
future he may find his reward. Il SIN
young he says, in letter TO one who has
laid it on our table for good purpose, Il
am Young, not yet twenty, am 4 poet, IL
deep worship OF all beauty can make me
one, and wish TO be so in the more COM
mon meaning Of the word. | would give
the world to embody one half the ideas
ailoat in my Imagination. By the way, do
YOU remember, or did you ever read
the exclamation OF Shelley about Shakes
peareg: What a number OF ideas
must have been ailoat before such
an author could rise!0 i appeal to
you as man. the same beauty which
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. 1t is not so much that they love
one another as that they both love the same
parent. Their affections are always rum
ming in ~ same directiOn-the same chan
nel-and cannot help mingling. am, and
have been from my childhood, an idler. 1t
cannot therefore be said that
'Ileft calling for this idle trade,
duty broke. Il father disobeyei,'
for l have no father, no mother. / am
about to publish volume OF Poems, the
greater part written before | was fifteen.
Speaking about I" Heaven" referring to
the Answer to Correspondents, before
mentioned, the editor OF The Yankee
says: 4" He might write beautiful, il not
a magnificent, poem," 0he very first words
OF encouragement ever remember to have
heard). ] am very certain that as yet |
have not written either, but that | can
will take oath, n they will give me time.
The poems to be published are al
Aaraaf" and Tamerlane," one about
four and the other about three hundred
lines, with smaller pieces. Gal Aaraaf"
has some good poetry and much
which / have not had
time to throw away. Gal Aaraaf"
Is q tale OF another world-the star
discovered by Tycho Brahe, which ap-
peared and disappeared SO suddenly-or,
rather, it is no tale at all. Twill insert an
extract about the palace Of its presiding
Deity, in which you will see that j have
supposed many Of the lost sculptures Of our
world 10 have flown, in spirit, to the star
AL Aaraaf, delicate place, more suited to
their divinity"
Then follow lon- extracts from the prin.
cipal poems, and this short passage from
the minor poems, which, as 1t does not APP
pear In the collected edition of POe's
works, will doubtless be read with some
interest:
II my peace hath flown away
In night or In a day,
In vision or In none,
Is IL therefore the less gomez
am standing mid the roar
or weather. beaten shore,
. And hold within my hand
Some Particles Of sand.
How few and how they creep
Through my fingers TO the deep.
MY early hopesf No, they
Went gloriousiy away,
Like lightning from the sky,
At once-and so win In
The editor OF The Yankee then goes on
o say: "Haying allowed our youthful |
writer to be heard In his own behalf, what
more can we do for the lovers of genuine |
'oetry! Nothing. They who are judges |
Will not need more, and they who are |
lot, why waste words upon themi We
hall not"
The peculiar literary style Of this Boston
ditor's welLmeant twaddle might lead