metrical arrangement of certain conventional
combinations of words, a capacity wholly dependent on a delicate
physical organization, and an unhappy memory. An early poem is only
remarkable when it displays an effort of _reason_, and the rudest verses
in which we can trace some conception of the ends of poetry, are worth
all the miracles of smooth juvenile versification. A schoolboy, one
would say, might acquire the regular see-saw of Pope merely by an
association with the motion of the play-ground tilt.

Mr. Poe's early productions show that he could see through the verse to
the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling that all the life
and grace of the one must depend on and be modulated by the will of the
other. We call them the most remarkable boyish poems that we have ever
read. We know of none that can compare with them for maturity of
purpose, and a nice understanding of the effects of language and metre.
Such pieces are only valuable when they display what we can only express
by the contradictory phrase of _innate experience_. We copy one of the
shorter poems, written when the author was only fourteen. There is a
little dimness in the filling up, but the grace and symmetry of the
outline are such as few poets ever attain. There is a smack of ambrosia
about it.

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

It is the _tendency_ of the young poet that impresses us. Here is no
"withering scorn," no heart "blighted" ere it has safely got into its
teens, none of the drawing-room sans-culottism which Byron had brought
into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a pleasant dash of the Greek
Helicon in it. The melody of the whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of
that kind which can be demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the
fingers. It is of that finer sort which the inner ear alone can
estimate. It seems simple, like a Greek column, because of its
perfection. In a poem named "Ligeia," under which title he i