quoted from Poe's whimsical
analysis of this very poem, but they indicate precisely the general range
of his verse. The climax of "The Bells" is the muffled monotone of ghouls,
who glory in weighing down the human heart. "Lenore," _The Raven_, "The
Sleeper," "To One in Paradise," and "Ulalume" form a tenebrose
symphony,--and "Annabel Lee," written last of all, shows that one theme
possessed him to the end. Again, these are all nothing if not musical, and
some are touched with that quality of the Fantastic which awakes the sense
of awe, and adds a new fear to agony itself. Through all is dimly outlined,
beneath a shadowy pall, the poet's ideal love,--so often half-portrayed
elsewhere,--the entombed wife of Usher, the Lady Ligeia, in truth the
counterpart of his own nature. I suppose that an artist's love for one "in
the form" never can wholly rival his devotion to some ideal. The woman near
him must exercise her spells, be all by turns and nothing long, charm him
with infinite variety, or be content to forego a share of his allegiance.
He must be lured by the Unattainable, and this is ever just beyond him in
his passion for creative art.

Poe, like Hawthorne, came in with the decline of the Romantic school, and
none delighted more than he to laugh at its calamity. Yet his heart was
with the romancers and their Oriental or Gothic effects. His invention, so
rich in the prose tales, seemed to desert him when he wrote verse; and his
judgment told him that long romantic poems depend more upon incident than
inspiration,--and that, to utter the poetry of romance, lyrics would
suffice. Hence his theory, clearly fitted to his own limitations, that "a
'long poem' is a flat contradiction in terms." The components of _The
Raven_ are few and simple: a man, a bird, and the phantasmal memory at a
woman. But the piece affords a fine display of romantic material. What have
we? The midnight; the shadowy chamber with its tomes of forgotten lore; the
student,--a modern Hieronymus; the raven's tap on the casement; the wintry
night and dying fire; the silken wind-swept hangings; the dreams and vague
mistrust of the echoing darkness; the black, uncanny bird upon the pallid
bust; the accessories of violet velvet and the gloating lamp. All this
stage effect of situation, light, color, sound, is purely romantic, and
even melodramatic, but of a poetic quality that melodrama rarely exhibits,
and thoroughly reflective of the poet's "eternal passion,