Besides the plainest germs
of "The Bells" and "The Haunted Palace" it contains a few lines somewhat
suggestive of the opening and close of _The Raven_. As to the rhythm of our
poem, a comparison of dates indicates that this was influenced by the
rhythm of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Poe was one of the first to honor
Miss Barrett's genius; he inscribed his collected poems to her as "the
noblest of her sex," and was in sympathy with her lyrical method. The
lines from her love-poem,

"With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows,"

found an echo in these:

"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before."

Here Poe assumed a privilege for which he roughly censured Longfellow, and
which no one ever sought on his own premises without swift detection and
chastisement. In melody and stanzaic form, we shall see that the two poems
are not unlike, but in motive they are totally distinct. The generous
poetess felt nothing but the true originality of the poet. "This vivid
writing!" she exclaimed,--"this power which is felt!... Our great poet, Mr.
Browning, author of 'Paracelsus,' &c., is enthusiastic in his admiration of
the rhythm." Mr. Ingram, after referring to "Lady Geraldine," cleverly
points out another source from which Poe may have caught an impulse. In
1843, Albert Pike, the half-Greek, half-frontiersman, poet of Arkansas, had
printed in "The New Mirror," for which Poe then was writing, some verses
entitled "Isadore," but since revised by the author and called "The Widowed
Heart." I select from Mr. Pike's revision the following stanza, of which
the main features correspond with the original version:

"Restless I pace our lonely rooms, I play our songs no more,
The garish sun shines flauntingly upon the unswept floor;
The mocking-bird still sits and sings, O melancholy strain!
For my heart is like an autumn-cloud that overflows with rain;
Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore!"

Here we have a prolonged measure, a similarity of refrain, and the
introduction of a bird whose song enhances sorrow. There are other trails
which may be followed by the curious; notably, a passage which Mr. Ingram
selects from Poe's final review of "Barnaby Rudge":

"The raven, too, * * * might have been made, more than w