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Text: Edgar Allan Poe, "[The Happiest Day]" (B),  North American (Baltimore), September 15, 1827, p. 144, col. 1




[page 144, bottom of column 1:]
(Original.)

The happiest day — the happiest hour,
My sear'd and blighted heart has known,
The brightest glance of pride and power
                                I feel hath flown —

Of power, said I? Yes, such I ween —
But it has vanish'd — long alas!
The visions of my youth have been —
                                But let them pass. —

And pride! what have I now with thee?
Another brow may e'en inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me :
                                Be still my spirit.

The smile of love — soft friendship's charm —
Bright hope itself has fled at last,
'T will ne'er again my bosom warm—
                                'Tis ever past.

The happiest day, — the happiest hour,
Mine eyes shall see, — have ever seen, —
The brightest glance of pride and power,
                                I feel has been.        W. H. P.








Notes:

"W. H. P." are the initials of Edgar's brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, usually called Henry. As this version of the poem appeared only a few months after the abortive publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), it is presumed that they are a revision of Edgar's verses rather than the other way around. T. O Mabbott felt that the rather tepid value of the modifications suggests that they were made by Henry, though perhaps with Edgar's approval.

A photographic facsimile of this printing was included by Hervey Allen and T. O. Mabbott in Poe's Brother,  New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926, p. 43.

The full title of the newspaper was North American, or Weekly Journal of Politics, Science and Literature. It was printed in Baltimore, MD, on good, high-rag paper. Each page is approximately 13 inches high by 10 inches wide. There are three columns on each page.





 
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