an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness.
What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?
To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B——what you no doubt perceive, for the metaphysical poets, as poets, the most sovereign contempt. That they have followers proves nothing—
No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
}
1 Σπουδιοτατον και φιλοσοφικοτατον γενος.
2 B—— is presumed to be Elam Bliss, the publisher of the Poems (1831).
Poe’s Preface to “The Raven and Other Poems”
These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while “going the rounds of the press.” I am naturally anxious that if what I have written is to circulate at all, it should circulate as I wrote it. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent on me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not—they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind
E. A. P.
}
This poem, most likely incomplete, was never printed in Poe’s lifetime. Its two lines were found written on a page of some of John Allan’s financial records. This is the earliest surviving manuscript in Poe’s own hand.
Last night, with many cares and toils oppress’d
Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest—
R
“A Dream” is a lyric poem that first appeared without a title in Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827. The narrator’s “dream of joy departed” causes him to confuse the difference between dream and reality. Its title was attached when it was published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems in 1829.
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream—that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro’ storm and night,
So trembled from afar—
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth’s day-star?
R
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
‘Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be—that dream eternally
Continuing—as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
‘Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright
I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness—have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?
‘Twas once—and only once—and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass—some power
Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind
Came o’er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit—or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was
That dream was as that night-wind—let it pass.
I have been happy, tho’ in a dream.
I have been happy—and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of
