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 sans-culottism 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 or Milton, 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 its 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 an 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 extrà_. 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 a 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.
Beside 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 partizanship.
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.