[Text: Edgar Allan Poe, "[Extracts from 'Fairyland'], The Yankee and
Boston Literary Gazette, September 1829. The introductory comments
are by John Neal, owner and editor of the Yankee.]
If E. A. P. of Baltimore -- whose lines
about 'Heaven,' though he professes to regard them as altogether superior
to any thing in the whole range of American poetry, save two or three trifles
referred to, are, though nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense — would but
do himself justice, might make a beautiful and perhaps magnificent poem.
There is a good deal to justify such a hope.
Dim vales — and shadowy floods,
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover,
For the tears that — drip all over.
The moonlight
......................... falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be,
O'er the strange woods — o'er the sea —
O'er spirits on the wing,
O'er every drowsy thing —
And buries them up quite,
In a labyrinth of light,
And then how deep! — Oh deep!
Is the passion of their sleep!
He should have signed it Bah! We have no room for others.
[The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette was owned and edited
by John Neal (1793-1876). In Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems
(1829), from which these not-yet published extracts were taken, Poe dedicated
"Tamerlane" to him.]
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