always delightfully apparent to me, in spite of the many little poetical
episodes, in which the impassioned romance of his temperament impelled
him to indulge; of this I cannot speak too earnestly--too warmly. I
believe she was the only woman whom he ever truly loved; and this is
evinced by the exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, called
Annabel Lee, of which she was the subject, and which is by far the most
natural, simple, tender and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. I have
heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a late love affair of
the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness evidently
misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely
of all its verses--where he says,

"'A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee,
So that her _high-born kinsmen_ came,
And bore her away from me.'

"There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity
and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking
the allusion to the _kindred angels_ and the heavenly _Father_ of the
lost and loved and unforgotten wife.

"But it was in his conversations and his letters, far more than in his
published poetry and prose writings, that the genius of Poe was most
gloriously revealed. His letters were divinely beautiful, and for hours I
have listened to him, entranced by strains of such pure and almost
celestial eloquence as I have never read or heard elsewhere. Alas! in the
thrilling words of Stoddard,

"'He might have soared in the morning light,
But he built his nest with the birds of night;
But he lie in dust, and the stone is rolled
Over the sepulcher dim and cold;
He has canceled the ill he has done or said,
And gone to the dear and holy dead.
Let us forget the path he trod,
And leave him now to his Maker, God.'"

The influence of Mr. Poe's aims and vicissitudes upon his literature, was
more conspicuous in his later than in his earlier writings. Nearly all
that he wrote in the last two or three years--including much of his best
poetry,--was in some sense biographical: in draperies of his imagination,
those who take the trouble to trace his steps, will perceive, but
slightly concealed, the figure of himself. The lineaments here disclosed,
I think, are not different from those displayed in his biography, which
is but a filling up of the picture. Thus far the few criticisms of his
life or w