The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1902-03-05
pOsTHUMOUs POEM BY
EDGAR ALLEN POE.
Found in a House Once His Home
in South Carolina.

The New York Sun publishes some
remarkable correspondence from
Greenville, South Carolina, in which
is given what is believed to be poem
by Edgar Allan Poe, never before
printed.
At present proof of its authenticity
cannot be. given, but the Circumstance
surrounding its discovery indicate
that it is genuine.
Part of Poe's disappointed career
was passed in dismal seclusion IN an
old and ramshackle frame hovel at the
extreme end of Sullivan's Island,
one of the gateposts at the entrance
of Charleston harbor, a weird hablta-
ton, and it was there that Poe, NOR
bid and alone, is supposed to have
written his famous story of 'sThe Gold
Bug And, in all probability, others
OF his blood-curdling, wonderfully exc
cuted tales were evolved in this spot.
It is highly probable that the poem
given below was wrought out amid
these surroundings.
The history of the poem is this-so
far as is known, or can be discovered,
after careful inquiry: An old maiden
lady, Miss Mary Wilkes North, a
member of an aristocratic South Car
olina family, was in the habit of
spending part of each summer on Suli-
vans Island. During one of her So
iourns there she bought from al ig-
norant Covite-a native Of the place
an old battered copy of Dante's "In-
ferno.'' which, the Covite assured
her, he had found between the wealth
erboarding and the edge of the floor
ing-the house was uncelled-of the
shack, Poe's quondam residence.
This find, with Poe's name on the
inside of the front cover, would of
itsslf have been of considerable senti-
mental value: but in comparison to
what the book was found to contain,
the, mere discovery of battered old
tome that had belonged to Poe was as
nothing. Upon the two sides OF the
first fly leaf of this volume, in cramp-
ed and cratic handwriting, with sew
eral erasures and corrections, the ink
all but faded away from the yellow,
moisture rotten sheet, were found the
verses composing the poem referred
TO, anu OS1OM GuO1u 0AO SA1GH1O LII
tia1s, "E. A. P.''
Miss North is not disposed to expose
her treasure to what she considers
vulgar curiosity, but allowed her kins-
man, the Suns correspondent, to have
it to read.
He made surreptitiously a hasty copy
of the poem. which is printedsas fol-
lows:
KELAH.
In my hermitage I fingered
Lone. and TREMENDOUSLY fingered
Tapping nervously my table to the
dull Neptunian roar
Fingered o'er leahet yellow,
Void of sign and void of fellow,
Tossed up by a surf-broke billow,
FlotSam on the foam-hecked shore.
/ could hear the breakers lifting,
And the sand dunes shifting, shifting,
With the night-wind's fftul moaning
'gainst the walls and at my door
Far off, weird, and terrifying,
I could hear bittern crying,
Storm battered, perchance, and dying
Desolate upon the shore.
While the faggots, CLEANED from
spindrift.
Tossed by tide and dried by windrift,
Flickering, threw fantastic figures from
the hearth across the floor,
There I sat and loosed my fancies
Midst the frelit shadow dances,
Meditating on the chances
That had cast my leaf ashore.
Then I turned and fxd my vision
On the leaf. curled in derision
At my vanity in thinking | could pene-
trate its lore:
And nv soul fell sick with fearing,
For, always, and ever nearing,
Loomed my life's lost aims, appearing
Strewn like wreckage on my shore.
Suddenly a voice came waiiing:
"see the creases"-screeching, rail
..see the creases;.' strident Kisses,
seemed to pierce through the walls
and floor!
"Ah,'' I mused, some wrath unholy,
Mocking me my melancholy.
Gliding me for some past folly,