Collected Works of Poe, Edgar Allan Poe [best mobile ebook reader TXT] 📗

Doctor, approaching the Mummy with great dignity, desired it to say candidly, upon its honor as a gentleman, if the Egyptians had comprehended, at any period, the manufacture of either Ponnonner's lozenges or Brandreth's pills.

We looked, with profound anxiety, for an answer -- but in vain. It was not forthcoming. The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head. Never was triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace. Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy's mortification. I reached my hat, bowed to him stiffly, and took leave.

Upon getting home I found it past four o'clock, and went immediately to bed. It is now ten A.M. I have been up since seven, penning these memoranda for the benefit of my family and of mankind. The former I shall behold no more. My wife is a shrew. The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life and of the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. Besides, I am anxious to know who will be President in 2045. As soon, therefore, as I shave and swallow a cup of coffee, I shall just step over to Ponnonner's and get embalmed for a couple of hundred years.

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The Poetic Principle

IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms. I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags -- fails -- a revulsion ensues -- and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such. There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity -- its totality of effect or impression -- we read it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book -- that is to say, commencing with the second -- we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned -- that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity: -- and this is precisely the fact. In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modem epic is, of the supposititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem _were _popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again. That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus, _the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition sufficiently absurd -- yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size, _abstractly considered -- there can be nothing in mere _bulk, so _far as a volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, _does _impress us with a sense of the sublime -- but no man is impressed after _this _fashion by the material grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As _yet, _they have not _insisted _on our estimating Lamar" tine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound -- but what else are we to _infer _from their continual plating about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little gentleman has accomplished an epic, 1* us frankly commend him for the effort -- if this indeed be a thing conk mendable--but let us forbear praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art rather by the impression it makes -- by the effect it produces -- than by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of "sustained effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another -- nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths. On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind. A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little Serenade--

I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me -- who knows how? -- To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint On the dark the silent stream -- The champak odors fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart, As I must die on shine, O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass! I die, I faint, I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast: O, press it close to shine again, Where it will break at last.

Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines--yet no less a poet than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night. One of the finest poems by Willis -- the very best in my opinion which he has ever written--has no doubt, through this same defect of undue brevity, been kept back from its proper position. not less in the

The shadows lay along Broadway, 'Twas near the twilight-tide-- And slowly there a lady fair Was walking in her pride. Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly, Walk'd spirits at her side.

Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet, And Honor charm'd the air; And all astir looked kind on her, And called her good as fair-- For all God ever gave to her She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare From lovers warm and true-- For heart was cold to all but gold, And the rich came not to won, But honor'd well her charms to sell. If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair -- A slight girl, lily-pale; And she had unseen company To make the spirit quail-- 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn, And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow From this world's peace to pray For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way!-- But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven By man is cursed alway!

In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has written so many mere "verses of society." The lines are not only richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the other works of this author. While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity is indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic. _It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force:--but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under the