The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Part 41

Then when nature around me is smiling, The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling, Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, As the b.r.e.a.s.t.s I believed in with me, If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from _thee._

Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delivered To pain--it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn-- They may torture, but shall not subdue me-- 'Tis of _thee_ that I think--not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,-- Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, Nor mute, that the world might belie.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one-- If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of _thee_.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that which I most cherished Deserved to be dearest of all: In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of _thee_.

Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No n.o.bler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself ent.i.tled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the n.o.blest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him, and _think_ him the n.o.blest of poets, _not_ because the impressions he produces are at _all_ times the most profound--_not_ because the poetical excitement which he induces is at _all_ times the most intense--but because it is at all times the most ethereal--in other words, the most elevating and most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess:"

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The cas.e.m.e.nt slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is strictly and simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in _an elevating excitement of the soul_, quite independent of that pa.s.sion which is the intoxication of the Heart, or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For in regard to pa.s.sion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love--the true, the divine Eros--the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionasan Venus--is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth, if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest.

We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. He recognizes the ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the cl.u.s.tering of low shrubberies, in the waving of the grain-fields, in the slanting of tall eastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the grouping of clouds, in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the gleaming of silver rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds, in the harp of aeolus, in the sighing of the night-wind, in the repining voice of the forest, in the surf that complains to the sh.o.r.e, in the fresh breath of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes to him at eventide from far-distant undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all n.o.ble thoughts, in all unworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, in the grace of her step, in the l.u.s.tre of her eye, in the melody of her voice, in her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her gentle charities, in her meek and devotional endurance, but above all, ah, far above all, he kneels to it, he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her _love._

Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the old cavalier:

A steed! a steed! of matchless speede!

A sword of metal keene!

Al else to n.o.ble heartes is drosse-- Al else on earth is meane.

The neighynge of the war-horse prowde.

The rowleing of the drum, The clangor of the trumpet lowde-- Be soundes from heaven that come.

And oh! the thundering presse of knightes, When as their war-cryes welle, May tole from heaven an angel bright, And rowse a fiend from h.e.l.l,

Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all, And don your helmes amaine, Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call Us to the field againe.

No shrewish teares shall fill your eye When the sword-hilt's in our hand,-- Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe For the fayrest of the land; Let piping swaine, and craven wight, Thus weepe and puling crye, Our business is like men to fight, And hero-like to die!

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION.

Charles d.i.c.kens, 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 G.o.dwin 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 G.o.dwin--and indeed what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in accordance with Mr. d.i.c.kens's 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 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 autorial 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 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 especial--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 in despair as unmanageable--at the cautious selections and rejections--at the painful erasures and interpolations,--in a word, at the wheels and pinions, the tackle for scene-shifting, the step-ladders and demon-traps, the c.o.c.k's feathers, the red paint, and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, const.i.tute the properties of the literary _histrio._

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 pell-mell, 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 a.n.a.lysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a _desideratum_, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing a.n.a.lyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the _modus operandi_ by which some one 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 referrible 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 circ.u.mstance--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--for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at 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 inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal 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 cla.s.ses of prose composition, such as _Robinson Crusoe_ (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously overpa.s.sed, it can never properly be overpa.s.sed 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 it 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 one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.

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 were 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, in 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 is _most readily_ attained in the poem.

Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Pa.s.sion, 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 Pa.s.sion a _homeliness_ (the truly pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem--for they may serve in 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 enveil 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 piquancy which might serve me as a key-note 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 a.s.sure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to a.n.a.lysis. 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 ident.i.ty--of repet.i.tion. 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 bethought 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 _desideratum_ 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 repet.i.tion, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-a.s.sumption 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_.