 Section 77 of the Complete Poetical Works. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Samari. The Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allan Poe. Section 77. The Philosophy of Composition. Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of Barnaby-Rudge, says, By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his Caleb Williams backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done. I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin, and indeed, what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea. But the author of Caleb Williams was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention. There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either a history affords a thesis, or one is suggested by an incident of the day, or at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative, designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or authorial comment, whatever crevices of fact or action may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect, keeping originality always in view, for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest. I say to myself, in the first place, of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or, more generally, the soul, is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select? Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by an incident or tone, whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone, afterwards looking about me, or rather within, for such combinations of events or tone as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect. I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would, that is to say, who could, detail step by step the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say, but perhaps the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers, poets in a special, prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy, an ecstatic intuition, and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought, at the true purposes seized only at the last moment, at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view, at the fully matured fancies discarded and despair as unmanageable, at the cautious selections and rejections, at the painful erasures and interpolations, in a word, at the wheels and pinions, tackle for scene shifting, the step ladders and demon traps, the cox feathers, the red paint, and the black patches, which, in 99 cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary history. I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pal mel, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner. For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions. And, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which someone of my own works was put together. I select the raven as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition, that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance, or say the necessity, which in the first place gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste. We commence then with this intention. The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression. Four, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality as it once destroyed. But since Ceteris Paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with anything that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no at once. What we term a long poem is in fact merely a succession of brief ones, that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only in as much as it intensely excites by elevating the soul, and all intense excitements are, through a cycle necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the Paradise Lost is essentially prose, a succession of poetical excitements interspersed inevitably with corresponding depressions, the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element totality or unity of effect. It appears evident then that there is a distinct limit as regards length to all works of literary art, the limit of a single sitting, and that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as Robinson Crusoe, demanding no unity, this limit may be advantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit, in other words, to the excitement or elevation, again, in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect, which is capable of inducing, for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect. This, with one proviso, that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem, a length of about 100 lines. It is, in fact, 108. My next thought concerned the choice of an impression or effect to be conveyed, and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic where I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration. The point, I mean, that beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, an elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure, which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of beauty, they mean precisely not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect. They refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul, not of intellect or of heart, upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the beautiful. Now, I designate beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes, that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment. No one, as yet having been weak enough to deny, that the peculiar elevation alluded to its most readily attained in the poem. Now the object truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable to a certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and passion a homeliness. The truly passionate will comprehend me, which are absolutely antagonistic to that beauty, which I maintain is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of the soul. It by no means follows from anything here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem. For they may serve an elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music by contrast. But the true artist will always contrive first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and secondly, to unveil them as far as possible, in that beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem. Regarding then beauty as my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation, and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. The length, the province, and the tone being thus determined, I betook myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic pickwency, which might serve me as a keynote in the construction of the poem. Some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects, or more properly points in the theatrical sense, I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I considered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of improvement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly used, the refrain, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone, both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity, of repetition. I resolved to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by adhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought. That is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel effects by the variation of the application of the refrain, the refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried. These points being settled, I next befought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence, would of course be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain. The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was of course a corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a close to have force must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis admitted no doubt, and these considerations inevitably led me to the long O, as the most sonorous vowel in connection with R, as the most producible consonant. The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word nevermore. In fact, it was the very first which presented itself. The next desiteratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word nevermore. In observing the difficulty which I at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being. I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech and very naturally, a parrot in the first instance suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a raven, as equally capable of speech and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone. I had now gone so far as the conception of a raven, the bird of Il-Omen, monotonously repeating the one word nevermore at the conclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone and in length of about 100 lines. Now, never losing sight of the object's supremeness or perfection at all points, I asked myself, of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death was the obvious reply. And when, I said, is this most melancholy of topics most poetical? From what I have already explained at some length, the answer here is also obvious. When it most closely allies itself to beauty, the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover. I had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a raven continuously repeating the word nevermore. I had to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the application of the word repeated. But the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the raven, employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw it once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending. That is to say, the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could make the first query propounded by the lover, the first query to which the raven should reply, nevermore, that I could make this first query a commonplace one, the second less so, the third still less, and so on, until at length the lover startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself, by its frequent repetition, and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it, is at length excited to superstition and wildly propounds queries of a far different character. In queries whose solution he is passionately at heart, propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture, propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic, or demoniac character of the bird, which reason assures him is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote, but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modeling his questions as to receive from the expected nevermore the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow. Proceeding the opportunity thus afforded me, or more strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction, I first established in mind the climax or concluding query, that query to which nevermore should be in the last place an answer, that query in reply to which this word, nevermore, should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair. Here, then, the poem may be said to have its beginning, at the end where all works of art should begin, for it was here at this point of my pre-considerations that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza. Prophet, said I, thing of evil, prophet still if bird or devil, by that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, tell this soul with sorrow laden if within the distant aiden, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Quote the raven, nevermore. I composed this stanza at this point, first that by establishing the climax, I might the better vary and graduate as regards seriousness and importance the preceding queries of the lover, and secondly, that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the meter, and the length and general arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas which were to proceed, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should without scruple have purposefully enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climacteric effect. And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object, as usual, was originality. The extent to which this has been neglected in versification is one of the most unaccountable things in the world. Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm, it is still clear that the possible varieties of meter and stanza are absolutely infinite, and yet for centuries, no man in verse has ever done or ever seemed to think of doing an original thing. The fact is that originality, unless in minds of very unusual force, is by no means a matter as some suppose of impulse or intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought, and although a positive merit of the highest class demands in its attainment less of invention than negation. Of course, I pretend to know originality in either the rhythm or meter of the raven. The former is trochaic, the latter is octameter a catalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic, repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse, and terminating with heptameter catalectic. Less pedantically, the feet employed throughout, trochaic, consists of a long syllable followed by a short. The first line of the stanza consists of eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half, in effect two thirds, the third of eight, the fourth of seven and a half, the fifth the same, the sixth, three and a half. Now each of these lines taken individually has been employed before, and what originality the raven has is in their combinations into stanzas. Nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects, arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration. The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover and the raven, and the first branch of this consideration was the locale. For this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest or the fields, but it has always appeared to me that a close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident. It has the force of a frame to a picture. It has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention, and of course, must not be confounded with mere unity of place. I determined then to place the lover in his chamber, in a chamber rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The rooms represented as richly furnished, this in mere pursuance of the ideas I have already explained on the subject of beauty, as the sole true poetical thesis. The locale being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird, and the thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The idea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter is a tapping at the door, originated in a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity, and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from the lover's throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the half fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked. I made the night tempestuous first to account for the raven seeking admission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the physical serenity within the chamber. I made the bird a light on the bust of palace, also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage, it being understood that the bust was absolutely suggested by the bird, the bust of palace being chosen first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and secondly, for the sonorousness of the word palace itself. About the middle of the poem, also, I have availed myself of the force of contrast, with the view of deepening the ultimate impression. For example, an air of the fantastic, approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was admissible, is given to the raven's entrance. He comes in with many a flirt and flutter. Not the least obeisance made he, not a moment stopped or stayed he, but with mean of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door. In the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out. Then this ebony bird beguiling, my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance at war. Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou, I said, art sure no craven, ghastly grim in ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore. Tell me what thy lordly name is, on the night's plutonian shore. Quote the raven, nevermore. Much I marveled this ungainly, foul to hear discourse so plainly, though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore. For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being, ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door. Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, with such name as nevermore. The effect of the denouement being thus provided for, I immediately dropped the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness. This tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted, with the line, but the raven sitting lonely on that placid bust spoke only, etc. From this epoch the lover no longer jests, no longer sees anything, even of the fantastic in the raven's demeanor. He speaks of him as a grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, and feels the fiery eyes burning into his bosom's core. This revolution of thought or fancy on the lover's part is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader, to bring the mind into a proper frame for the denouement, which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as possible. With the denouement proper, with the raven's reply, nevermore, to the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world, the poem in its obvious phase that of a simple narrative may be said to have its completion. So far everything is within the limits of the accountable, of the real. A raven having learned by rote the single word nevermore, and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven at midnight through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams. The chamber window of a student occupied half in pouring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's demeanor, demands of it ingest, and without looking for a reply, its name. The raven addressed answers with its customary word, nevermore. A word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who giving utterance allowed to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is again startled by the foul's repetition of nevermore. The student now guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, as I have before explained, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to the bird, as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, to the anticipated answer, nevermore. With the indulgence to the extreme of this self-torture, the narration, in what I have termed its first or obvious phase, has a natural termination, and so far there has been no overstepping of the limits of the real. But in subjects so handled, however skillfully, or with however vivid an array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness, which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required. First, some amount of complexity, or more properly adaptation, and secondly, some amount of suggestiveness, some undercurrent, however indefinite of meaning. It is this latter in a special, parts to a work of art so much of that richness to borrow from colloquy a forcible term, which we are too fond of confounding with the ideal. It is the excess of the suggested meaning. It is the rendering this the upper instead of the undercurrent of the theme, which turns into prose, and that of the very flattest kind, the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists. Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stances of the poem. Their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative which has preceded them. The undercurrent of meaning is rendered first apparent in the lines. Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door quote the raven, nevermore. It will be observed that the words from out my heart involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer nevermore, disposed the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the raven as emblematical, but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of mournful and never-ending remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of palace just above my chamber door. And his eyes have all the seeming and the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor. And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted, nevermore. End of Section 77 The Complete Poetical Works by Edgar Allan Poe Section 78 Old English Poetry Footnote, The Book of Gems edited by S. C. Hall and a footnote It should not be doubted that at least one-third of the affection with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be attributed to what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry. We mean to the simple love of the antique that, again, a third of even the proper poetic sentiment inspired by their writings should be ascribed to a fact which, while it has strict connection with poetry in the abstract and with the old British poems themselves, should not be looked upon as a merit appertaining to the authors of the poems. Almost every devout admirer of the old bards if demanded his opinion of their productions would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and, he would perhaps say, indefinable delight on being required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure he would be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and in general handling. This quaintness is, in fact, a very powerful adjunct to ideality but, in the case in question, it arises independently of the author's will and is altogether apart from his intention. Words and their rhythm have varied which affect us today with a vivid delight and which delight in many instances may be traced to the one source quaintness must have worn in the days of their construction a very commonplace air. This is, of course, no argument against the poems now. We mean it only as against the poets then. There is a growing desire to overrate them. The old English muse was frank, guileless, sincere, and although very learned, still learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Don and Cowley metaphysical in the sense where in Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With the two former, ethics were the end. With the two latter, the means. The poet of the creation wished by highly artificial verse to inculcate what he supposed to be moral truth. The poet of the ancient mariner used the poetic sentiment through channels suggested by analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception. The other by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the metaphysical verse of Cowley is but evidence of the simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in this type of his school, for we may as well designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the volume before us and throughout all of whom there runs a very perceptible general character. They used little art in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the soul and partook intensely of that soul's nature. Nor is it difficult to perceive the tendency of this abandon to elevate immeasurably all the energies of mind, but again so to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy and all good things with the lowest possible bathos, baldness and imbecility as to render it not a matter of doubt that the average results of mind in such a school will be found inferior to those results in one ceteris paribus, more artificial. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections of the book of gems are such as will impart to a poetical reader the clearest possible idea of the beauty of the school, but if the intention had been merely to show the school's character, the attempt might have been considered successful in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us of the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond that of their antiquity. The criticisms of the editor do not particularly please us. His enthusiasm is too general and too vivid not to be false. His opinion, for example, of Sir Henry's Wattons versus on the Queen of Bohemia that, quote there are few finer things in our language, unquote, is untenable and absurd. In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of poetry which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here everything is art, nakedly or but awkwardly concealed. No pre-possession for the mere antique and in this case we can imagine no other pre-possession should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry, a series such as this of elaborate and threadbare compliments stitched apparently together without fancy, without plausibility and without even an attempt at adaptation. In common with all the world we have been much delighted with The Shepherd's Hunting by Withers, a poem partaking in a remarkable degree of the peculiarities of Il Penzeroso. Speaking of poetry, the author says, quote, by the murmur of a spring or the leased boughs rustling by a daisy whose leaves spread shut when Titan goes to bed or a shady bush or tree she could more infuse in me than all nature's beauties con in some other wiser man. By her help I also now make this cherlish place allow something that may sweeten gladness in the very gall of sadness, the dull loneliness, the black shade that these hanging vaults have made, the strange music of the waves beating on these hollow caves, this black den which rocks emboss, overgrown with eldest moss, the rude portals that give light more to terror than delight. This, my chamber of neglect, walled about with disrespect from all these and this dull air, a fit object for despair she hath taught me by her might to draw comfort and delight, unquote. But these lines, however good, do not bear with them much of the general character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in Corbett's farewell to the fairies. We copy a portion of Marvell's maiden lamenting for her fawn which we prefer, not only as a specimen of the elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem abounding in pathos exquisitely delicate imagination and truthfulness to anything of its species, quote, it is a wondrous thing how fleet twars on those little silver feet with what a pretty skipping grace it oft would challenge me the race and when had left me far away it would stay and run again and stay for it was nimbler much than hints and trod as if on the four winds. I have a garden of my own, but so with roses overgrown and lilies that you would at guess to be a little wilderness and all the springtime of the year it only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I have sorted off to where it should lie yet could not till itself would rise find it although before mine eyes for in the flaxen lilies shade it like a bank of lilies laid upon the roses it would feed until its lips even seemed to bleed and then to me it would boldly trip and print those roses on my lip but all its chief delight still with roses thus itself to fill and its pure virgin limbs to fold in whitest sheets of lilies cold had it lived long it would have been lilies without roses within. How truthful an air of lamentations hangs here upon every syllable it pervades all it comes over the sweet melody of the words over the gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself even over the half playful half petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties and good qualities of her favourite like the cool shadow of a summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets and all sweet flowers. The whole is redolent with poetry of a very lofty order. Every line is an idea conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn or the artlessness of the maiden or her laugh or her adoration or her grief or the fragrance and warmth of the little nest like bed of lilies and roses which the fawn devoured as it lay upon them and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile on her face. Consider the great variety of truthful and delicate thought in the few lines we have quoted the wonder of the little maiden at the fleetness of her favourite the little silver feet the fawn challenging his mistress a pretty skipping grace running on before and then with head turned back awaiting her approach only to fly from it again. Can we not distinctly perceive all these things? How exceedingly vigorous too is the line and trod as if on the four winds a vigour apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of the speaker and the four feet of the favourite one for each wind then consider the garden of my own so overgrown entangled with roses and lilies as to be a little wilderness the fawn loving to be there and there only the maiden seeking it where it should lie and not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until itself would rise the lying among the lilies like a bank of lilies the loving to fill itself with roses and its pure virgin limbs to fold in whitest sheets of lilies cold and these things being its chief delights and then the preeminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines who's very hyperbole only renders the more true to nature when we consider the innocence the artlessness the enthusiasm the passionate girl and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child had it lived long it would have been lilies without roses within End of section 78 End of the complete poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe