PRAISE FOE "THE RAVEN"—WOMEN ADMIRERS.
When it became known that Poe was the author of "The Raven," many writers and citizens who passed him by unnoticed before, sought his society and flattered his genius. It is the way of the world.
Mrs. Whitman, a great admirer and personal friend of Poe, says that one evening at the residence of a noted poetess at Waverly Place, Poe recited "The Raven" with great effect and electrified the critical audience.
Willis gave it as his opinion that "The Raven" "was the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift."
Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, an English poetess, who was a member of the "Mutual Admiration Society" of Poe, says of "The Raven": "This vivid writing, this power which is felt, has produced a sensation here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of persons who are haunted by the 'Nevermore,' and an acquaintance of mine who has the misfortune of possessing a bust of Pallas, cannot bear to look at it in the twilight."
Another female admirer of Poe says: "Everything about him distinguished him as a man of mark; his countenance, person, and gait, were alike characteristic. His features were regular, and decidedly handsome. His complexion was clear and dark; the color of his fine eyes, seemingly a dark gray, but on closer inspection they were seen to be of that neutral violet tint, which is so difficult to define. His forehead, broad and high, was, without exception, the finest in proportion and expression that I have ever seen."
About this time Poe became acquainted with Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, the most noted female American poetess of her day, and mutual admiration burst spontaneously from these twin spirits—love at sight! Those who court the Muses are prone to indulge in florid and spontaneous expressions.
Mrs. Osgood delivers herself in this rhapsody:
"My first meeting with the poet was at the Astor House. A few days previous Mr. Willis had handed me at the table d'hote that strange and thrilling poem, 'The Raven,' saying that the author wanted my opinion on it. Its effect upon me was so singular, so like that of a 'weird, unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling almost of dread I heard he desired an introduction.
"Yet I could not refuse without seeming ungrateful, because I had just heard of his enthusiastic and partial eulogy of my writings, in his 'Lecture on American Literature.'
"I shall never forget the morning I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to receive Mr. Poe. With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark, gray eyes flashing with the elective light of feeling and thought, a peculiar and illimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his expression and manner, he greeted me calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply impressed by it.
"From that moment until his death we were friends, although we met only the first year of our acquaintance. And in his last words, ere reason had forever left her imperial throne in that overtasked brain, I have a touching memento of his undying faith and friendship."
It is little wonder that Mrs. Osgood went into comparative spasms over the introduction to Poe, when one reads the following bits of his laudatory criticism on her own poetic works but a few months before:
"'Necessity,' says the proverb, 'is the mother of invention'; and the invention of Mrs. Osgood at least springs plainly from necessity—from the necessity of invention. Not to write poetry, not to act it, think it, dream it, and be it, is entirely out of her power.
"The warm abandonment of her style, that charm which now so captivates, is but a portion and consequence of her unworldly nature, of her disregard of mere fame."
In speaking of Mrs. Osgood's dramatic poem of "Elfrida," he says: "The woman's soul here shrinks from the direct avowal of want of love for her husband, and flies to poetry and appeals to fate, by way of excusing that infidelity which is at once her glory and her shame."
Where the glory comes in to justify a woman's infidelity, is not well understood by moralists. Poe did not bother himself much about morality.
The celebrated dancer, Fanny Ellsler, was lauded to the skies by Mrs. Osgood in the following fashion:
"And now with flashing eyes she springs—
Her rich bright figure raised in air,
As if her soul had spread her wings,
And poised for one wild instant there!
"She spoke not—but so richly fraught
With language are her glance and smile,
That when the curtain fell I thought
She had been talking all the while."
Poe praises in this strain:
"This is indeed poetry—not of the most unquestionable kind—poetry truthful in the proper sense—that is to say, breathing nature. There is here nothing forced or artificial, no hardly sustained enthusiasm. The poetess speaks because she feels; but then what she feels is felt only the truly poetical.
"The idea in the two first lines is exquisitely naive and natural! That in the two first lines of the second quatrain, magnificent, unsurpassed in the entire compass of American poetry!"
Well, at any rate, in the desert fields of Poe's censure it is a consolation to find even a few cases of praise, where the flowers of flattery and laudation smother the briars of condemnation. His poetic soul went out to women. Who can blame him?
Poets, orators, warriors and statesmen have been remarkably successful in launching themselves into the affections of the ladies.
'Poe was a master of language and rhythmical construction, but he wrote no poem like this, composed in memory of my first sweetheart, whom the green billows of the Mediterranean Sea engulfed more than forty years ago:
RETROSPECTION.
I SEE before
A cottage door
The form I loved in days of yore.
Her words to me
Were light and free
As airs upon some summer sea.
The garden bloom
With sweet perfume
Came stealing round each nook and room;
The birds of spring
Would soar and sing,
While bees were buzzing on the wing.
A cooing dove,
She sang of love
And led me to a world above,
Where, pure and bright,
Both day and night
We'd live amid celestial light.
Her eyes of blue —
A sapphire hue,
Shone o'er me fondly, bright and true;
And in that face
I still can trace
The beauty of her modest grace.
And she was fair
With dark-brown hair —
Her voice rang out upon the air
Like vesper bells
In convent cells,
When love its holy music tells.
She said, "some day"
We'll sail away
O'er bounding billows fringed with spray;
And for awhile
We'll bask and smile
Within some sweet enchanted isle.
Our magic boat
We cast afloat
From summer sands and castle moat,
And swept along,
With love and song,
Till ocean wind grew loud and strong.
Far, far away
The island lay —
A tropic isle within a bay,
Where storms sleep
Within the deep
And love its holy vigils keep.
The clouds grew dark
Around my bark,
The petrel sang, and not fhe lark —
A thunder roll
From pole to pole
Came sounding o'er my sinking soul.
I rose and fell,
Yet could not tell
That sea-nymphs sang her funeral knell;
The rocky shore
Was right before,
And dashed my hopes forevermore.
Down in the wave
Of ocean's cave,
She sleeps within a coral grave
And dreams of me
Beneath the sea
While winds are blowing o'er the lea.
Ah! thus we find,
When love is kind,
Some cruel fate will strike us blind,
And steal away
The sunny ray
That shines upon our life to-day.
Though hope be gone,
I'll still hope on,
And ever think of thee, dear one,
Until "some day"
I'll sail away
To greet you in a brighter bay!
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