experiences of his own life or the lives of those with wnom his
own was blended.
Even Shakespeare, consummate master that he was of all the
secrets of literary art, hesitated not to avail himself of the most
touching memories, and enriched his song with scenes from his
boyhood.
But look abroad as we may we can find no author whose writ
ings are so truly his owii counterpart as those of Edgar Allen Poe.
Had we no record of his life, his poems would in a great measure
supply the deficiency, since they are autobiographical in a stricter
sense than is poetry of even a more strongly subjective character.
Amid all weirdness and glamour of his style there glides the
shrouded figure of himself. It requires no straining of the eye
to recognize this mysterious presence. He is there in form as real
as though everything he wrote were but expressions of sensa
tions born of his own wretched life.
A vague unrest, the result no doubt of constant disappointments,
is reflected from all of his poems. No biographer could hope to
more than faintly shadow the weird picture Poe gives us of
himself in that wonderful poem "The Raven," which ocupies, we
think, the most prominent position among the creations of Ameri
can imagnative literature. With the genius, of despair he paints
his terrible infirmity in the most awful Colors. Though he does
got declare it he forces upon us the conviction that he is that
bird's—
"Unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster,
Till his songs one burden bore,
Till the dirges of his hope that
Melancholy burden bore
Of never, nevermore."
This poem is a life history in itself, a dirge of vanished dreams
and blighted hopes, ushering us into his preenge when desolate
and unhappy, and finally dismissing us with the utter hopelessness
that "His soul shall never be lifted from its destroying shadow."