TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand!

The agate lamp within thy hand,

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

It is the tendency of the young poet that impresses us. Here is

no “withering scorn,” no heart “blighted” ere it has safely got

into its teens, none of the drawing-room sansculottism which

Byron had brought into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a

pleasant dash of the Greek Helicon in it. The melody of the

whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of that kind which can be

demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the fingers. It is

of that finer sort which the inner ear alone _can_ estimate. It

seems simple, like a Greek column, because of its perfection. In

a poem named “Ligeia,” under which title he intended to personify

the music of nature, our boy-poet gives us the following

exquisite picture:

Ligeia! Ligeia!

My beautiful one,

Whose harshest idea

Will to melody run,

Say, is it thy will,

On the breezes to toss,

Or, capriciously still,

Like the lone albatross,

Incumbent on night,

As she on the air,

To keep watch with delight

On the harmony there?

John Neal, himself a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too

long capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and

similar passages, and drew a proud horoscope for their author.

Mr. Poe had that indescribable something which men have agreed to

call _genius_. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is,

and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence

and its power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it

has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but

the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most

perfect works have still one foot of clay. Genius claims kindred

with the very workings of Nature herself, so that a sunset shall

seem like a quotation from Dante, and if Shakespeare be read in

the very presence of the sea itself, his verses shall but seem

nobler for the sublime criticism of ocean. Talent may make

friends for itself, but only genius can give to its creations the

divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm cannot

cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have

disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a

disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they

are possessed and carried away by their demon, while talent keeps

him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his

sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is

ever rent asunder that it may perceive the ministers of good and

evil who throng continually around it. No man of mere talent ever

flung his inkstand at the devil.

When we say that Mr. Poe had genius, we do not mean to say that

he has produced evidence of the highest. But to say that he

possesses it at all is to say that he needs only zeal, industry,

and a reverence for the trust reposed in him, to achieve the

proudest triumphs and the greenest laurels. If we may believe the

Longinuses and Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too

many geniuses of the loftiest order to render a place among them

at all desirable, whether for its hardness of attainment or its

seclusion. The highest peak of our Parnassus is, according to

these gentlemen, by far the most thickly settled portion of the

country, a circumstance which must make it an uncomfortable

residence for individuals of a poetical temperament, if love of

solitude be, as immemorial tradition asserts, a necessary part of

their idiosyncrasy.

Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of

vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of

imagination. The first of these faculties is as needful to the

artist in words, as a knowledge of anatomy is to the artist in

colors or in stone. This enables him to conceive truly, to

maintain a proper relation of parts, and to draw a correct

outline, while the second groups, fills up and colors. Both of

these Mr. Poe has displayed with singular distinctness in his

prose works, the last predominating in his earlier tales, and the

first in his later ones. In judging of the merit of an author,

and assigning him his niche among our household gods, we have a

right to regard him from our own point of view, and to measure

him by our own standard. But, in estimating the amount of power

displayed in his works, we must be governed by his own design,

and placing them by the side of his own ideal, find how much is

wanting. We differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions of the objects of

art. He esteems that object to be the creation of Beauty, and

perhaps it is only in the definition of that word that we

disagree with him. But in what we shall say of his writings, we

shall take his own standard as our guide. The temple of the god

of song is equally accessible from every side, and there is room

enough in it for all who bring offerings, or seek in oracle.

In his tales, Mr. Poe has chosen to exhibit his power chiefly in

that dim region which stretches from the very utmost limits of

the probable into the weird confines of superstition and

unreality. He combines in a very remarkable manner two faculties

which are seldom found united; a power of influencing the mind of

the reader by the impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness

of detail which does not leave a pin or a button unnoticed. Both

are, in truth, the natural results of the predominating quality

of his mind, to which we have before alluded, analysis. It is

this which distinguishes the artist. His mind at once reaches

forward to the effect to be produced. Having resolved to bring

about certain emotions in the reader, he makes all subordinate

parts tend strictly to the common centre. Even his mystery is

mathematical to his own mind. To him X is a known quantity all

along. In any picture that he paints he understands the chemical

properties of all his colors. However vague some of his figures

may seem, however formless the shadows, to him the outline is as

clear and distinct as that of a geometrical diagram. For this

reason Mr. Poe has no sympathy with Mysticism. The Mystic dwells

in the mystery, is enveloped with it; it colors all his thoughts;

it affects his optic nerve especially, and the commonest things

get a rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is a

spectator _ab extra_. He analyzes, he dissects, he watches

“with an eye serene,

The very pulse of the machine,”

for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and

piston-rods, all working to produce a certain end.

This analyzing tendency of his mind balances the poetical, and by

giving him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a

wonderful reality into his most unreal fancies. A monomania he

paints with great power. He loves to dissect one of these cancers

of the mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its

roots. In raising images of horror, also, he has strange success,

conveying to us sometimes by a dusky hint some terrible _doubt_

which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the

task of finishing the picture, a task to which only she is

competent.

“For much imaginary work was there;

Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,

That for Achilles’ image stood his spear

Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind

Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.”

Besides the merit of conception, Mr. Poe’s writings have also

that of form.

His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It

would be hard to find a living author who had displayed such

varied powers. As an example of his style we would refer to one

of his tales, “The House of Usher,” in the first volume of his

“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” It has a singular charm

for us, and we think that no one could read it without being

strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its author

written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp

him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In

this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.

The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the

vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used

dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other

qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers.

The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about

her. Mr. Poe’s secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has

employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this

his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of

art, not artifice. We cannot call his materials the noblest or

purest, but we must concede to him the highest merit of

construction.

As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his

analysis of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the

faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His

criticisms are, however, distinguished for scientific precision

and coherence of logic. They have the exactness, and at the same

time, the coldness of mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand

in strikingly refreshing contrast with the vague generalisms and

sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth, they are

also without the heat of partisanship. They are especially

valuable as illustrating the great truth, too generally

overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate quality of the

critic.

On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has

attained an individual eminence in our literature which he will

keep. He has given proof of power and originality. He has done

that which could only be done once with success or safety, and

the imitation or repetition of which would produce weariness.