I can never forget the impressions I felt in reading a story of his for the first time… I experienced a sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither look at anything he had written nor even utter his name… By degrees this terror took the character of fascination—I devoured with a half-reluctant and fearful avidity every line that fell from his pen.

To Edgar Allan Poe – 1 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

If thy sad heart, pining for human love,
In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,
Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove
Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere
Wherein thy spirit wandered,—if the flowers
That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom
In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,
When all who loved had left thee to thy doom,—
Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale
Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain
So much of Heaven’s sweet grace as shall avail
To lift its burden of remorseful pain,
My soul shall meet thee, and its Heaven forego
Till God’s great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven bestow.

Frances S. Osgood’s letter to Sarah Helen Whitman – 1min

March 26, 1848

I see by the Home Journal that your beautiful invocation has reached ‘The Raven’ in his eyrie and I suppose, ere this, he has swooped upon your little dove-cot in Providence. May Providence protect you if he has! For his croak is the most eloquent imaginable. He is in truth a glorious devil, with large heart and brain.

To Helen – 1 min

by Edgar Allan Poe

I saw thee once – once only – years ago:

I must not say how many – but not many.

It was a July midnight; and from out

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,

With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,

Upon the upturn’d face of a thousand

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden

Edgar Allan Poe’s Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman – 10 min

October 1, 1848

I have pressed your letter again and again to my lips, sweetest Helen — bathing it in tears of joy, or of a “divine despair.” But I — who so lately, in your own presence, vaunted the “power of words” — of what avail are mere words to me now? Could I believe in the efficiency of prayers to the God of Heaven, I would kneel — humbly kneel — at this the most earnest epoch of my life — kneel in entreaty for words — but for words that should disclose to you — that might enable me to lay bare to you my whole heart. All thoughts — all passions seem now merged in that one consuming desire — the mere wish to make you comprehend — to make you see that for which there is no human voice —the unutterable fervor of my love for you — for so well do I know your poet-nature, oh Helen, Helen! that I feel sure if you could but look down now into the depths of my soul with your pure spiritual eyes you could not refuse to speak to

me that, alas! you still resolutely leave unspoken — you would love me if only for the greatness of my love. Is it not something in this cold, dreary world, to he loved? — Oh, if I could but bum into your spirit the deep the true meaning which I attach to those three syllables underlined! — but, alas! the effort is all in vain and “I live and die unheard.”

When I spoke to you of what I felt, saying that I loved now for the first time, I did not hope you

would believe or even understand me: nor can I hope to convince you now — but if, throughout some long, dark summer night, I could but have held you close, close to my heart and whispered to you the strange secrets of its passionate history, then indeed you would have seen that I have been far from attempting to deceive you in this respect. I could have shown you that it was not, and could never have been, in the power of any other than yourself to have moved me as I am now moved — to oppress me with this ineffable emotion — to surround and bathe me in this electric light, illumining and enkindling my whole nature — filling my soul with glory,

with wonder, and with awe. During our walk in the cemetery I said to you, while the bitter, bitter — tears sprang into my eyes — “Helen I love’ now — now — for the first time and only time.” I said this, I repeat, in no hope, that you could — believe me, but because I could not help feeling how unequal were the heart-riches we might offer each to each: — I, for the first time, giving my all, at once, and for- ever, even while the words of your poem were yet

ringing in my ears.

I have already told you that some few casual words spoken of you by Miss Lynch, were the first in which I had heard your name mentioned. She described you, in some measure, personally. She alluded to what she called your “eccentricities” and hinted at your sorrows. Her description of the former strangely arrested — her allusion to the latter enchained and riveted, my attention. She had referred to thoughts, sentiments, traits, moods which I knew to be my own, but which, until that moment, I had believed to be my own solely — unshared by any human being. A profound sympathy took immediate possession of my soul. I cannot better explain to you what I felt than by saying that your unknown heart seemed to pass into my bosom —

there to dwell forever — while mine, I thought, was translated into your own. From that hour I loved you. Yes, I now feel it was then — on that evening of sweet dreams — that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have never seen or heard your name without a shiver, half of delight, half of anxiety.

I dared not speak of you — much less see you. For years your name never passed

my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, all that was uttered in my presence respecting you. The merest whisper that concerned you awoke in me a shuddering sixth sense, vaguely compounded of fear, ecstatic happiness, and a wild, inexplicable sentiment that resembled nothing so nearly as the consciousness of guilt. —Judge, then, with what

wondering, unbelieving joy I received, in your well-known manuscript, the valentine which first gave me to see that you knew me to exist. The idea of what men call Fate lost then for the first time, in my eyes, its character of futility. I felt that nothing hereafter was to be doubted, and lost myself, for many weeks, in one continuous, delicious dream, where all was a vivid yet indistinct bliss, — Immediately after reading the valentine, I wished to contrive some mode of acknowledging — without wounding you by seeming directly to acknowledge — my sense — oh, my keen — my profound — my exulting — my ecstatic sense of the honor you had conferred on me. From that hour I have never been able to shake from my soul the belief that my Destiny, for good or for evil, either here or hereafter, is in some measure interwoven with your own.

Of course, I did not expect on your part any acknowledgement of the printed lines “To Helen,”

and yet, without confessing it even to myself, I experienced an undefinable sorrow in your silence. At length, when I thought you had time fully to forget me (if indeed you had ever really remembered) I sent you the anonymous lines. I wrote them, first, through a pining, burning desire to communicate with you in some way — even if you remained in ignorance of your correspondent. The mere thought that your dear fingers would press — your sweet eyes

dwell upon characters which I had penned — characters which had welled out upon the paper from the depths of so devout a love — filled my soul with a rapture, which seemed then all sufficient for my human nature. It then appeared to me that merely this one thought involved so much of bliss that here on earth I could have no right ever to repine — no room for discontent. — If ever, then, I dared to picture for myself a richer happiness, it was always connected with your image in Heaven.

But there was yet another idea which impelled me to send you those lines:— I said to myself — The sentiment — the holy passion which glows within my spirit for her, is of Heaven, heavenly, and has no taint of the earth. Thus there must lie, in the recesses of her own pure bosom, at least the germ of a reciprocal love; and if this be indeed so, she will need no earthly clue — she will instinctively feel who is her correspondent. — In this case, then, I may hope for

some faint token, at least, giving me to understand that the source of the poem is known and its sentiments comprehended even if disapproved. Oh God — how long — how long I waited in vain — hoping against Hope — until at length I became possessed with a spirit far sterner — far more reckless than Despair. — I explained to you — but without detailing the vital influence they wrought upon my fortune; but I have not yet told you that your manuscript lines reached me in Richmond on the very day in which I was about to depart on a tour and an enterprise which would have changed my very nature — fearfully altered my very soul — steeped me in a stem, cold, and debasing, although brilliant gigantic ambition — and borne me “far, far

away” and forever from you, sweet, sweet Helen, and from this divine dream of your Love.

And now, in the most simple words at my command, let me paint to you the impression made upon me by your personal presence. — As you entered the room, pale, timid, hesitating, and evidently oppressed at heart; as your eyes rested appealingly, for one brief moment, upon mine, I felt, for the first time in my life, and tremblingly acknowledged, the existence of spiritual influences altogether out of the reach of reason. I saw that you were Helen — my Helen —

the Helen of a thousand dreams — she whose visionary lips had so often lingered upon my own in the divine trance of passion — she whom the great Giver of all Good preordained to be mine — mine only — if not now, alas! then at least hereafter and forever in the Heavens. — You spoke falteringly and seemed scarcely conscious of what you said. I heard no words – only the soft voice, more familiar to me than my own, and more melodious than the songs of the angels.

Your hand rested within mine, and my whole soul shook with a tremulous ecstasy. And then but for very shame — but for the fear of grieving or oppressing you — I would have fallen at your feet in as pure — in as real a worship as was ever offered to Idol or to God.

Sarah Helen Whitman’s Letter to Edgar Allan Poe – 1 min

September 27, 1848

You will, perhaps, attempt to convince me that my person is agreeable to you — that my countenance interests you: — but in this respect I am so variable that I should inevitably disappoint you if you hoped to find in me to-morrow the same aspect which won you to-day. And, again, although my reverence for your intellect and my admiration of your genius make me feel like a child in your presence, you are not, perhaps, aware that I am many years older than yourself. I fear you do not know it, and that if you had known it you would not have felt for me as you do. I find that I cannot now tell you all that I promised. I can only say to you [that had I youth and health and beauty, I would live for you and die with you. Now, were I to allow myself to love you, I could only enjoy a bright, brief hour of rapture and die

Edgar Allan Poe’s Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman – 7 min

October 1, 1848

— To all this what shall I — what can I say — except that the heavenly candor with which you

speak oppresses my heart with so rich a burden of love that my eyes overflow with sweet tears. You are mistaken, Helen, very far mistaken , about this matter of age. I am older than you; and if illness and sorrow have made you seem older than you are — is not all this the best of reasons for my loving you the more? Cannot my patient cares — my watchful, earnest attention — cannot the magic which lies in such devotion as I feel for you, win back for you much — oh, very much of the freshness of your youth? But grant that what you urge were even true. Do

you not feel in that inmost heart of hearts that the “soul-love” of which the world speaks so often and so idly is, in this instance at least, but the veriest, the most absolute, of realities? Do you not — I ask of your reason, darling, not less than of your heart — do you not perceive that it is my diviner nature — my spiritual being — which bums and pants to commingle with your own? Has the soul age, Helen? Can immortality regard Time? Can that which began never and shall never end, consider a few wretched years of its incarnate life? Ah, I could weep — I could almost be angry with you for the unwarranted wrong you offer to the purity — to the

sacred reality of my affection. — And how am I to answer what you say of your personal appearance? Have I not seen you, Helen? Have I not heard the more than melody of your voice? Has not my heart ceased to throb beneath the magic of your smile? Have I not held your hand in mine and looked steadily into your soul through the crystal Heaven of your eyes? Have I done all these things? — or do I dream? — or am I mad? Were you indeed all that your fancy,

enfeebled and perverted by illness, tempts you to suppose that you are, still, life of my life! I could but love you — but worship you the more: — it would be so glorious a happiness to prove to you what I feel! But as it is, what can I — what am I to say? who ever spoke of you without emotion — without praise? who ever saw you and did not love?

But now a deadly terror oppresses me; for I clearly see that these objections — so groundless — so futile when urged to one whose nature must be so well known to you as mine is — can scarcely be meant earnestly; and I tremble lest they but serve to mask others, more real, and which you hesitate — perhaps in pity — to confide to me. Alas! I too distinctly perceive,

also, that in no instance you have ever permitted yourself to say that you love me. You are aware, sweet Helen, that on my part there are insuperable reasons forbidding me to urge upon you my love. Were I not poor — had not my late errors and reckless excesses justly lowered me in the esteem of the good — were I wealthy, or could I offer you worldly honors — ah then —then — ^how proud would I be to persevere — to sue —to plead — to pray — to beseech you for your love — in the deepest humility — at your feet — at your feet, Helen, and with floods of passionate tears.

Ah, beloved, beloved Helen the darling of my heart — my first and my real love! — may God forever shield you from the agony which these your words occasion me! How selfish — how despicably selfish seems now all — all that I have written! Have I not, indeed, been demanding at your hands a love which might endanger your life? You will never, never know — you can never picture to yourself the hopeless, rayless despair with which I now trace these words. Alas Helen! my soul! — what is it that I have been saying to you? — to what madness have I been urging you? — I who am nothing to you — you who have a dear mother and sister to be blessed by your life and love. But ah, darling! if I seem selfish, yet believe that I truly, truly love you, and that it is the most spiritual of love that I speak, even if I speak it from the depths of the most passionate of hearts. Think — oh, think for me, Helen, and for yourself! Is there no hope? — is there none? May not this terrible disease be conquered? Frequently it has been overcome. And more frequently are we deceived in respect to its actual existence. Long-continued nervous disorder — especially when exasperated by ether — will give rise to all the symptoms of heart-disease and so deceive the most skillful physicians — as even in my own case they were deceived. But admit that this fearful evil has indeed assailed you. Do you not all the more really need the devotionate care which only one who loves you as I do, could or would bestow? On my bosom could I not still the throbbings of your own? Do not mistake me, Helen! Look, with your searching — your seraphic eyes, into the soul of my soul, and see if you can discover there one taint of an ignoble nature! At your feet — if you so willed it — I would cast from me, forever, all merely human desire, and clothe myself in the glory of a pure, calm, and unexacting

affection. I would comfort you — soothe you — tranquillize you. My love — my faith — should instill into your bosom a preternatural calm. You would rest from care — from all worldly agitation. You would get better, and finally well. And if not, Helen, — if not — if you died — then at least would I clasp your dear hand in death, and willingly — oh, joyfully — joyfully — joyfully — go down with you into the night of the Grave.

Song – 1 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

I bade thee stay. Too well I know

The fault was mine, — mine only:

I dared not think upon the past,

All desolate and lonely.

I feared in memory’ silent air

Too sadly to regret thee, –

Feared in the night of my despair

I could not all forget thee.

Yet go, — ah, go! those pleading eyes,

Those low, sweet tones, appealing

From heart to heart, — ah, dare I trust

That passionate revealing?

For ah, those dark and pleading eyes

Evoke too keen a sorrow, –

A pang that will not pass away,

With thy wild vows, to-morrow.

Song – 1 min

by Edgar Allan Poe

I saw thee on thy bridal day —

When a burning blush came o’er thee,

Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light

(Whatever it might be)

Was all on Earth my aching sight

Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame —

As such it well may pass —

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

When that deep blush would come o’er thee,

Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee.

New London Daily Star – 1 min

New London, CT – December 23, 1848

On Dit. – Edgar A. Poe, Esq., the celebrated poet and critic, is about to lead to the Hymenial altar, Mrs. Sarah H. Whitman, of Providence, a well known and popular authoress.

Sarah Helen Whitman’s Letter to Rufus Wilmot Griswold – 2 min

December 24, 1848

On the 23rd of December Mr. Poe wrote a note to the Rev. Dr. Crocker, requesting him to publish our intention of marriage on the ensuing Sunday — He also wrote a letter to Mrs. Clemm informing her that he would be married on Monday and should arrive at Fordham on Tuesday in the second train of cars. We rode out together in the morning and passed the greater part of the day in making preparations for my sudden change of abode. In the afternoon, while we were together at one of the circulating libraries of the city, a communication was handed me cautioning me against this imprudent marriage, informing me of many things of Mr. Poe’s recent career with which I was previously unacquainted. I was at the same time informed that he had already violated the solemn promises that he had made to me and to my friends on the preceding evening. I knew that even had I been disposed to overlook these things myself, they must within a few hours come to the knowledge of my friends and would lead to a recurrence of the scenes to which I had been already subjected, and I felt utterly helpless of being able to exercise any permanent influence over his life. On our return home. I announced to him what I had heard, and, in his presence, countermanded the order, which he had previously given for the delivery of the note he had addressed to Dr. Crocker. He earnestly endeavored to persuade me that I had been misinformed, especially in relation to his having that very morning called for wine at the bar of the hotel where he boarded. The effect of this infringement of his promise was in no degree perceptible, but the authority on which I had received this and other statements concerning him was not to be questioned. I listened to his explanations and his remonstrances without one word of reproach and with that marble stillness of despair so mercifully accorded to us when the heart has been wrought to its highest capacity of suffering … I had now learned that my influence was unavailing. Utterly worn out and exhausted by the mental conflict and anxieties and responsibilities of the last few days, I drenched my handkerchief with ether and threw myself on a sofa hoping to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sinking on his knees beside me, he entreated me to speak to him — to speak one word — but one word. At last I responded almost inaudibly — ‘What can I say’ — ‘Say that you love me, Helen’ — ‘I love you.’ Those three words were the last I ever spoke to him. He remonstrated, explained and expostulated — But I had sunk from a violent ague fit into a cold and death-like torpor. A merciful apathy was now stealing over my senses and though I vaguely heard all, or mush, that was said, I spoke no word or gave any sign of life.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman – 3 min

January 25, 1849

Dear Madam,

In commencing this letter, need I say to you, after what has passed between us, that no amount of provocation on your part, or on the part of your friends, shall induce me to speak ill of you even in my own defence? If to shield myself from calumny however undeserved, or however unendurable, I find a need of resorting to explanations that might condemn or pain you, most solemnly do I assure you, that I will patiently endure such calumny, rather than avail myself of any such means of refuting it — You will see then, that so far I am at your mercy — but in making you such assurances, have I not a right to ask of you some forbearance in return?

[…] That you Mrs W — have uttered, promulgated or in any way countenanced this pitiable falsehood, I do not & cannot believe — some person equally your enemy & mine has been its author — but what I beg of you is, to write me at once a few lines in explanation — you know of course that by reference either to Mr Pabodie (who at my request forbore to speak to the minister about publishing the first banns on the day I left) or, to the Rev. Mr Crocker himself, I can disprove the facts stated in the most satisfactory manner — but there can be no need of disproving what I feel confident was never asserted by you — Your simple disavowal is all that I wish. Heaven knows that I would shrink from wounding or grieving you! I blame no one but your Mother — Mr Pabodie will tell you the words which passed between us, while from the effects of those terrible stimulants you lay prostrate without even the power to bid me farewell — Alas! I bitterly lament my own weaknesses, & nothing is farther from my heart than to blame you for yours — May Heaven shield you from all ill! So far I have assigned no reason for my declining to fulfil our engagement — I had none but the suspicious & grossly insulting parsimony of the arrangements into which you suffered yourself to be forced by your Mother — Let my letters & acts speak for themselves — It has been my intention to say simply, that our marriage was postponed on account of your ill health — Have you really said or done anything which can preclude our placing the rupture on such footing? If not, I shall persist in the statement & thus this unhappy matter will die quietly away —

A. Poe

Quotation originally from Sarah Helen Whitman’s correspondence (now dispersed), first published in Caroline Ticknor’s “Poe’s Helen” – 1 min

1916

Dreading that an answer to this letter might lead to a renewal of the harrowing scenes I had passed through I did not reply to it. I was utterly hopeless of my power to sustain or comfort him. I longed to assure him of my unalterable interest in his welfare and happiness but I dared not incur the consequences of further direct communication with him.

Our Island of Dreams – 2 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,

Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore;

The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart,

But colder those wild words of doom, “Ye must part!”

O’er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry;

Save the wail of those waters there came no reply.

I longed, like a bird, o’er the billows to flee,

From our lone island home and the moan of the sea;

Away – far away – from the wild ocean shore,

Where the waves ever murmur, “No more, never more”;

Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear

That lone song to the surges, so mournful and drear.

When the clouds that now veil from us heaven’s fair light,

Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night;

When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel,

He shall know if I loved him; but never how well.

A Dream – 1 min

by Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departed—

But a waking dream of life and light

Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day

To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him with a ray

Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream—that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam

A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

So trembled from afar—

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth’s day-star?

Sarah Helen Whitman’s Letter to R. W. Griswold – 2 min

December 12, 1849

If I could but believe that he […] was aware of the interest which I still felt in him, what a weight of sadness would be taken from my heart — but, alas, I fear that he thought I had become indifferent to him and unmindful of his happiness — I sometimes imagine that, incensed and grieved by my silence, he had even requested Mrs. Osgood but to answer my letters — From the numerous efforts which have been made both before and since his death to prejudice me against him. I cannot but infer that similar agencies have been employed to convince him that I had ceased to regard him with interest. […]

I trust Mrs. Clemm will believe the statement which I here make to you, that I have never spoken of him but in words of extenuation and kindness — never thought of him but with feelings of unalterable sympathy, compassion, and admiration. I am the more anxious that she should know this because I have reason to believe that others have sought to impress her with a contrary opinion — I also wish her to know that our separation was not the result of any deliberate act of my own, far less of any change in my feelings toward him — I knew from the first that our engagement was a most imprudent one — I clearly foresaw all the perils and penalties to which it would expose but having cemented to it (under circumstances which seemed to make life or death, happiness or misery alike indifferent to me) I resolved not to retract my promise — nor would I have done so — the union to which I was so rashly urged, and to which I so rashly consented, was in the end prevented by circumstances over which I had no control — by a fatality which no act of mine could have averted — and I can only account for the reproachful tone of Mr. Poe’s last letter by supposing (as he indeed therein suggested) that ‘some person equally his enemy and mine’ had sought by the most false and groundless assertions to make him believe that my friendship for him changed into disgust and abhorrence — Perhaps Mrs. Clemm can tell me from whence these reports originated. — but it is a matter or little moment now, for I trust that he now sees my heart and knows that I have never wronged him in thought word or deed — Will you excuse me for troubling you with these statements and will you make them known to Mrs. Clemm whenever you may have a convenient opportunity of doing so.

Silence – 2 min

by Edgar Allan Poe

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,

In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea,

Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

No voice is hush’d — no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,

That never spoke — over the idle ground

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,

Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,

And owls, that flit continually between,

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Our Haunted Room – 2 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

Here, where thy presence, like a rare,

Sweet perfume, lingers everywhere,

Elusive shadows haunt the air.

The dimly-pictured walls expand

To mountain sceneries, wild and grand,

Where war-worn castles proudly stand, —

Bastions and barbacans that gleam

In the old mirror’s crystal stream,

Like far-off palaces of dream.

A censer, curiously enwrought,

That burned in some barbaric court,

Drowsed in the Orient’s dusky thought,

On the long centuries seems to brood,

When in Mongolian halls it stood,

Breathing of myrrh and sandal wood.

From an amphora, quaint and tall,

Funereal mosses float and fall,

And waver down the chamber wall,

Dark southern mosses that have hung

The wild sea-island woods among,

And o’er their deep morasses swung.

The hands that twined with flexile grace

Their garlands round my flower-lipped vase,

Shrouding the corbel’s sculptured face,

Fair-folded in a southern clime,

Absolved from all the toils of time,

Await the eternal morning’s prime :

Fair-folded by the Atlantic wave,

‘Mid the dark race she died to save,

Where homeless sea-winds haunt her grave.

But when the sunset fires are low,

And twilight fancies come and go,

And mystic winds of memory blow, —

When the heart feels its courage fail,

Its visioned hopes without avail,

Untouched, unfound its Holy Grail, —

Some solemn rapture, like a strain

Of music’s beautiful disdain,

Uplifts beyond all mortal pain :

A sudden splendor rifts the gloom, —

A light that seems to bud and bloom

From out the shadows of the room :

A silken stir anear the door,

Like rose-leaves rippling o’er the floor,

And lo ! glad-smiling, as of yore,

Close at my side I see thee stand

In shining garments, ghostly grand,

A palm-branch budding in thy hand,

And, sweet as morning’s music breath

Across the hills of Nazareth,

A low voice murmurs, ” No more death !

Resurgamus – 2 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

I mourn thee not; no words can tell

The solemn calm that tranced my breast,

When first I knew thy soul had past

From earth to its eternal rest.,

For doubt and darkness, o’er thy head

Forever waved their condor wings;

And in their murky shadows, bred

Forms of unutterable things.

And all around thy silent hearth,

The glory that once blushed and bloomed

Was but a dim-remembered dream

Of “the old-time entombed.

Those melancholy eyes that seemed

To look beyond all time, or, turned

On eyes they loved, so softly beamed, –

How few their mystic language learned.

How few could read their depths, or know

The proud, high heart that dwelt alone

In gorgeous palaces of woe,

Like Eblis on his burning thronw.

For ah! no human heart could brook

The darkness of thy doom to share,

And not a living eye could look

Unscathed upon thy dread despair.

I mourn thee not: life had no lore

Thy soul in morphean dews to steep,

Love’s lost nepenthe to restore,

Or bid the avenging sorrow sleep.

Yet, while the night of life shall last,

While the slow stars above me roll,

In the heart’s solitudes I keep

A solemn vigil for thy soul.

I tread dim cloistral aisles, where all

Beneath are solemn-sounding graves;

While o’er the oriel, like a pall,

A dark, funereal shadow waves.

There, kneeling by a lampless shrine,

Alone amid a place of tombs,

My erring spirit pleads for thing

Till light along the Orient blooms.

Oh, when thy faults are all forgiven,

The vigil of my life outwrought,

In some calm altitude of heave, –

The dream of thy prophetic thought, –

Forever near thee, soul in soul,

Near thee forever, yet how far,

May our lives reach love’s perfect goal

In the high order of thy star

III – 2 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

Oft since thy earthly eyes have close don mine,

Our souls, dim-wandering in the hall of dreams,

Hold mystic converse on the life divine,

By the still music of immortal streams;

And oft thy spirit tells how souls, affied

By sovran destinies, no more can part, –

How death and hell are powerless to divide

Souls whose deep lives lie folded heart in heart.

And if, at times, some lingering shadow lies

Heavy upon my path, some haunting dread,

Then do I point thee to the harmonies

Of those calm heights whereto our souls arise

Through suffering, – the faith that doth approve

In death the deathless power and divine life of love.

The Raven – 7 min

by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!

The Raven – 7 min

by Sarah Helen Whitman

RAVEN, from the dim dominions

On the Night’s Plutonian shore,

Oft I hear thy dusky pinions

Wave and flutter round my door —

See the shadow of thy pinions

Float along the moon-lit floor;

Often, from the oak-woods glooming

Round some dim ancestral tower,

In the lurid distance looming —

Some high solitary tower —

I can hear thy storm-cry booming

Through the lonely midnight hour.

When the moon is at the zenith,

Thou dost haunt the moated hall,

Where the marish flower greeneth

O’er the waters, like a pall –

Where the House of Usher leaneth,

Darkly nodding to its fall:

There I see thee, dimly gliding, —

See thy black plumes waving slow, —

In its hollow casements hiding,

When their shadow yawns below,

To the sullen tarn confiding

The dark secrets of their woe: —

See thee, when the stars are burning

In their cressets, silver clear, —

When Ligeia’s spirit yearning

Fo the earth-life, wanders near, —

When Morella’s soul returning,

Weirdly whispers “I am here.”

Once, within a realm enchanted,

On a far isle of the seas,

By unearthly visions haunted,

By unearthly melodies,

Where the evening sunlight slanted

Golden through the garden trees, —

Where the dreamy moonlight dozes,

Where the early violets dwell,

Listening to the silver closes

Of a lyric loved too well,

Suddenly, among the roses,

Like a cloud, thy shadow fell.

Once, where Ulalume lies sleeping,

Hard by Auber’s haunted mere,

With the ghouls a vigil keeping,

On that night of all the year,

Came thy sounding pinions, sweeping

Through the leafless woods of Weir!

Oft, with Proserpine I wander

On the Night’s Plutonian shore,

Hoping, fearing, while I ponder

On thy loved and lost Lenore

On the demon doubts that sunder

Soul from soul for evermore;

Trusting, though with sorrow laden,

That when life’s dark dream is o’er,

By whatever name the maiden

Lives within thy mystic lore,

Eiros, in that distant Aidenn,

Shall his Charmion mee once more.

Sarah Helen Whitman had a heart condition that she treated with ether she breathed in through her handkerchief.^[3

Whitman was friends with Margaret Fuller and other intellectuals in New England. She became interested in transcendentalism through this social group and after hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture in Boston, Massachusetts and in Providence. She also became interested in science, mesmerism, and the occult.^[4] She had a penchant for wearing black and a coffin-shaped charm around her neck and may have practiced séances in her home on Sundays, attempting to communicate with the dead.^[5] Boston was a progressive city that introduced her to the social reform movements that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

Long knew of one another’s works and were fascinated

After Poe walked Osgood back to her hotel, he traveled northbound, the same route from which he had just come. It was a hot and humid night in July. The moon was full (or nearly full), and it was about midnight at this point. While taking in the magnificent views of the city, Poe approached Whitman’s house to find her now outside. She was ethereal-looking as she walked to and from her rose garden in the backyard. She was clad in a white muslin dress, a white shawl, and with a sheer veil draped over her gentle face. Her garments floated in the warm, evening breeze. Poe told Osgood about the encounter the next day, and the sight of Sarah Helen Whitman left a perpetual mark on his mind.

Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe first crossed paths in Providence in July 1845. Poe was attending a lecture by friend and poet Frances Sargent Osgood. As Poe and Osgood walked, they passed the home of Whitman while she was standing in the rose garden behind her house. Poe declined to be introduced to her.^[6] By this time, Whitman was already an admirer of Poe’s stories. She admitted to her friend Mary E. Hewitt:

A friend, Annie Lynch, had asked Whitman to write a poem for a Valentine’s Day party in 1848. She agreed, and wrote one for Poe, though he was not in attendance. Poe heard about the tribute, “To Edgar Allan Poe,” and returned the favor by anonymously sending his previously-printed poem “To Helen“. Whitman may not have known it was from Poe himself, and she did not respond. Three months later, Poe wrote her an entirely new poem, “To Helen,” referencing the moment from several years earlier where Poe first saw her in the rose garden behind her house.^[8] An introduction between the poets was inevitably to come in 1848, after Whitman published a flirtatious Valentine poem in the Home Journal titled “To Edgar A. Poe,” later renamed, “The Raven.” She was completely unaware that Poe already had a slight infatuation with her after seeing her three years prior. Flattered by Whitman’s unsolicited attention, Poe tore out a poem from a published collection of his works that conveniently bore a title with Whitman’s nickname, “To Helen.” Poe sent the poem to her anonymously. Whitman did not reply to the poem, so Poe wrote a tailored poem just for her and sent it anonymously in the hopes that she would connect some dots. The poem, inspired by his first sighting of her, began:

I saw thee once — once only — years ago:
I must not say how many — but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturn’d faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden

He posed as an autograph collector under the pseudonym Edward S. T. Grey, writing in request of her signature. This was a ploy so that she would return his letter and confirm her residency in Providence. Once Poe got the reply, he traveled straight to Providence and called on her at this very house on September 21, 1848. They meet for the very first time. A courtship ensued over the next three months. In this time, Whitman rejected Poe’s constant marriage proposals, spiraling him into a deep depression and hopelessness.

Poe proposed to Whitman in a local cemetery. It was during one of these trips to Providence that the couple spent time together in the Athenæum, and Whitman showed Poe a new interesting poem called “Ulalume,” published anonymously in the library’s copy of the American Whig Review (December 1847). Poe revealed himself as the author and signed his name in pencil next to the poem. it was here they were last together as an engaged couple. One of the reasons Poe was interested in Whitman was really because she was his intellectual equal. They just connected on a deep level

The name of Helen had a strange charm for him from an incident that happened in his boyhood. The mother of one of his schoolmates, who has spoken a few kind words to the imaginative child, died suddenly and left a sweet and sorrowful memory in his heart that seems never to have faded. I believe that the spirit of her who bore this beloved name, has always hovered around him, and that it was in some way through her influence that he was drawn to me. You may think this fanciful, but many strange incidents suggestive of such psychal influences occurred to me at that period of my life.

The two exchanged letters and poetry for some time before discussing engagement. After Poe lectured in Providence in December 1848, reciting a poem by Edward Coote Pinkney directly to Whitman, she agreed to an “immediate marriage”.^[11] Poe agreed to remain sober during their engagement — a vow he violated within only a few days. Whitman’s mother discovered that Poe was also pursuing Annie Richmond and childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster. Even so, the wedding had come so close to occurring that, in January 1849, a newspaper in New London, Connecticut and others announced their union and wished them well.^[12] At one point, they chose the wedding date of December 25, 1848,^[13] despite criticism of the relationship from friends and enemies alike. Whitman supposedly received an anonymous letter while she was at the library suggesting that Poe had broken his vow to her to stay sober, directly leading to an end of the relationship.

Our Island of Dreams

By Sarah Helen Whitman

Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,

Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore;

The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart,

But colder those wild words of doom, “Ye must part!”

O’er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry;

Save the wail of those waters there came no reply.

I longed, like a bird, o’er the billows to flee,

From our lone island home and the moan of the sea;

Away – far away – from the wild ocean shore,

Where the waves ever murmur, “No more, never more”;

Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear

That lone song to the surges, so mournful and drear.

When the clouds that now veil from us heaven’s fair light,

Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night;

When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel,

He shall know if I loved him; but never how well.

Both Sarah and her mother had marriages to imprudent and dissolute men, herego the hardship with trusting Poe.

Thomas W. White to E. A. Poe, Esq., 29 September 1835

Dear Edgar, – Would that it were inmy power to unbosom myself to you, in language such as I could on the present occasion, wish myself maste rof. I cannot do it – and therefore must be content to speak to you in my plain way.

That you are sincere in all your promises, I firmly believe. But, Edgar, when you once again tread these streets, I have my fears that your resolve would fall through, – and that you would again sip the juice, even till it stole away your senses. Rely on your own strength, and you are gone! Look to your Maker for help, and you are safe!

How much I regretted parting with you, is unknown to anyone on this earth, except myself. I was attached to you – and am still, – and willingly would I say return, if I did not dread the hour of separation very shortly again.

If you could make yourself contented to take up your quarters in my family, or in any other private family where liquor is not used, I should think there were hopes of you. – But, if you go to a tavern, or to any other place where it is used at table, you are not safe. I speak from experience.

Edgar A. Poe to John P. Kennedy, 11 February 1836

…You are nearly, but not altogether right in relation to the satire in some of my Tales. Most of them were intended for half banter, half satire – although I might not have fully acknowledged this to be their aim even to myself. “Lioninzing” and “Loss of Breath” were satires properly speaking – at least so meant – the one of the rage for lions, and the facility of becoming one – the other of the extravagancies of Blackwood. I find no difficulty in keeping up with the demands of the Magazine…

Lydia H. Sigourney, another well-established author and editor by the time Poe emerged on the literary scnee, responded to is uncertainties about the nature of his literary cristicism. Poe’s critiques, chiefly in the form of book reviews, were often savage, and although they drew much attention to the Messenger, they occasionally alarmed Thomas W. White, the owner, as well as making for Poe many enemies who were connected with or powerful in the literary world of early nineteenth-century America, thus paving the way for later onslaughts by his detractors.

In 1860, eleven years after his death, she published a work in defense of Poe against his critics, aimed especially at Rufus Griswold, entitled Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics. Mrs. Whitman was even more: she was, perhaps, the only contemporary ofPoe who recognized some of the larger dimensions of his work, and she was one of only a very few personsin the nineteenth century whomanagedto achieve a clear understanding ofhis place within the context ofhis own age. has seldom been taken seriously by students of Poe, presumably for the same reasons that they have seldom taken Mrs. Whitman herselfseriously. What probably puts offmost readersis the Spiritualism which pervades. Mrs. Whitman traces the origins of Poe’s peculiar genius to a disorder in his personality and to a crisis in his personal life. The disorder was both a deficiency in whatshe calls “thatsupreme central force or faculty of the mind, whose function is a God-conscious and God-adoring faith” and an “abnormal preponderance of the analyti4 Studies in English, New Series, Vol. 3 [1982], Art. 17 https://egrove.olemiss.edu/studies_eng_new/vol3/iss1/17 124 SARAH HELEN WHITMAN AS A CRITIC OF POE cal and imaginative faculties.”7 Though this may sound like just so much phrenological claptrap, her message unscrambled is that Poe was an intrinsically skeptical soul whose fate it was to have been born into an inherently skeptical age. She saw where he in weakness failed, where he from prejudice, or passion, erred sadly; she deplored his faults and shortcomings, but her gaze rested steadfastly on a great spirit groping toward the light, a man of brilliant intellect, splendid imagination and marvelous power of expression. Herself a poet, she thoroughly appreciated his poetic gift; a critic, she could measure his keen insight into literary values; a mistress of English style, she recognized in his creative touch the masterhand. Having once comprehended the man in his entirety, Mrs. Whiman would never allow the thought of any one phase of his conduct to alter her estimate of him, or to detract from that which she regarded as his just desert.

there were few in Providence who did not know of their erratic courtship and their matrimonial plans

It had apparently occurred to Sarah’s mother, Mrs. Power, after the signing of the conveyance December 15 that in spite of this transaction her estate was not as yet secure. Since she had sought the transfer after her knowledge of the intended marriage, in accordance with Rhode Island law Poe could later have had the conveyance declared a fraudulent procedure, and after marriage have demanded the return of the property to his wife; and it he so desired, he could then have reduced the property to his own possession. Apparently it was just this sort of thing that Mrs. Power feared that he would do; accordingly, on December 22 Poe was asked to sign in the presence of witnesses the following humiliating contract to the effect that the transfer of the property had not been made without his knowledge and approval: Poe could not have been more insulted than he now was by the insinuations and machinations involved in the transfer of the Power property to its adamant guardian. Having signed this final paper, he repaired to the bar room of the Earle House at 67 North Main Street and later in the evening returned to call on Mrs. Whitman, knowing that his engagement to her rested solely on the condition of his abstinence.(1) It is true that he conducted himself on this evening in such a way as not to reveal his infringement to his fiancée, but others present knew of his broken pledge; and strangely enough, it seems that Poe’s promise of abstinence had been made not only to Mrs. Whitman but also to her friends.(2) Pabodie, who was there nearly the whole of the evening, was aware of Poe’s intoxication, and later remarked that this was “the only evening on which he was intoxicated during his last visit to the city,” and “that there was no unusual noise, no disturbance, no outrage,” and that “Mr. Poe said but little and was very quiet.”(3) Poe, however, did not confine his drinking to the evening, but the following morning renewed his assault upon the marriage pledge before calling upon Mrs. Whitman.(4) Mrs. Power had a condition of her own: Her daughter must forfeit her substantial inheritance in order to marry Poe. They planned to wed on Christmas

Mrs. Whitman was not aware of Poe’s having visited the Earle House Bar on either the morning of Saturday the 23rd or the previous evening, and she knew nothing of his infringement [[infringement]] until later informed by her friends.

On the 23rd of December Mr. Poe wrote a note to the Rev. Dr. Crocker, requesting him to publish our intention of marriage on the ensuing Sunday — He also wrote a letter to Mrs. Clemm informing her that he would be married on Monday and should arrive at Fordham on Tuesday in the second train of cars. We rode out together in the morning and passed the greater part of the day in making preparations for my sudden change of abode. In the afternoon, while we were together at one of the circulating libraries of the city, a communication was handed me cautioning me against this imprudent marriage, informing me of many things of Mr. Poe’s recent career with which I was previously unacquainted. I was at the same time informed that he had already violated the solemn promises that he had made to me and to my friends on the preceding evening. I knew that even had I been disposed to overlook these things myself, they must within a few hours come to the knowledge of my friends and would lead to a recurrence of the scenes to which I had been already subjected, and I felt utterly helpless of being able to exercise any permanent influence over his life.”(1) On our retain home,” she continued, “I announced to him what I had heard, and, in his presence, countermanded the order, which he had previously given for the delivery of the note he had addressed to Dr. Crocker. He earnestly endeavored to persuade me that I had been misinformed, especially in relation to his having that very morning called for wine at the bar of the hotel where he boarded. The effect of this infringement of his promise was in no degree perceptible, but the authority on which I had received this and other statements concerning him was not to be questioned. I listened to his explanations and his remonstrances without one word of reproach and with that marble stillness of despair so mercifully accorded to us when the heart has been wrought to its highest capacity of suffering … I had now learned that my influence was unavailing. “Utterly worn out and exhausted by the mental conflict and anxieties and responsibilities of the last few days,” she wrote, “I drenched my handkerchief with ether and threw myself on a sofa hoping to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sinking on his knees beside me, he entreated me to speak to him — to speak one word — but one word. At last I responded almost inaudibly — ‘What can I say’ — ‘Say that you love me, Helen’ — ‘I love you.’

Those three words were the last I ever spoke to him. He remonstrated, explained and expostulated — But I had sunk from a violent ague fit into a cold and death-like torpor. He brought shawls and covered me with them, and then lifting me in his arms bore me to a lounge near the fire, where he remained on his knees beside me chafing my hands and evoking me, by all tenderous names and epithets, to speak to him again one word. A merciful apathy was now stealing over my senses and though I vaguely heard all, or mush, that was said, I spoke no word or gave any sign of life. My mother and sister and another friend were in the room — I heard my mother remonstrating and urging his departure; then Mr. Pabodie entered the room and joined my mother in the entreaties that he would leave me.

To these letters I received no reply,” she later wrote Griswold, “If I could but believe that he knew of this, and that he was aware of the interest which I still felt in him, what a weight of sadness would be taken from my heart — but, alas, I fear that he thought I had become indifferent to him and unmindful of his happiness — I sometimes imagine that, incensed and grieved by my silence, he had even requested Mrs. Osgood but to answer my letters — From the numerous efforts which have been made both before and since his death to prejudice me against him. I cannot but infer that similar agencies have been employed to convince him that I had ceased to regard him with interest.”

Stanzas for Music or Tell Him I Lingered Alone on the Shore

Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,

Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet never more;

The night wind blew cold on my desolate hearts

But colder those wild Ards of doom, ‘Ye must Darts’

O’er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry;

Save the wall of those waters there came no reply.

I longed, like a bird, o’er the billows to flee,

From our lone, island home and the moan of the sea: [page 374:]

Away — far away — from the wild ocean shore,

Where the waves ever murmur, ‘no more, never more’;

Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear

That love song of the surges, so mournful and drear.

When the clouds that now veil from us heaven’s fair light,

Their soft, silver turn forth on the, night;

When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel,

He shall know if I loved him but never how well.”

Poe is said to have remarked to Judge Hughes during his last visit to Richmond that Mrs. Whitman “had repeated efforts toward reconciliation, which he refused”

Mrs. Whitman was always curious about Poe’s relations with Mrs. Shelton, and years later she asked Mrs. Clemm if a marriage had been intended between Poe and Mrs. Shelton. Mrs. Clemm replied that it had been so

Resurgamus

I mourn thee not; no words can tell

The solemn calm that tranced my breast,

When first I knew thy soul had past

From earth to its eternal rest.,

For doubt and darkness, o’er thy head

Forever waved their condor wings;

And in their murky shadows, bred

Forms of unutterable things.(3)

And all around thy silent hearth,

The glory that once blushed and bloomed

Was but a dim-remembered dream

Of “the old-time entombed.”

Those melancholy eyes that seemed

To look beyond all time, or, turned

On eyes they loved, so softly beamed, –

How few their mystic language learned.

How few could read their depths, or know

The proud, high heart that dwelt alone

In gorgeous palaces of woe,

Like Eblis on his burning thronw.

For ah! no human heart could brook

The darkness of thy doom to share,

And not a living eye could look

Unscathed upon thy dread despair.

I mourn thee not: life had no lore

Thy soul in morphean dews to steep,

Love’s lost nepenthe to restore,

Or bid the avenging sorrow sleep.

Yet, while the night of life shall last,

While the slow stars above me roll,

In the heart’s solitudes I keep

A solemn vigil for thy soul.

I tread dim cloistral aisles, where all

Beneath are solemn-sounding graves;

While o’er the oriel, like a pall,

A dark, funereal shadow waves.

There, kneeling by a lampless shrine,

Alone amid a place of tombs,

My erring spirit pleads for thing

Till light along the Orient blooms.

Oh, when thy faults are all forgiven,

The vigil of my life outwrought,

In some calm altitude of heave, –

The dream of thy prophetic thought, –

Forever near thee, soul in soul,

Near thee forever, yet how far,

May our lives reach love’s perfect goal

In the high order of thy star

“I trust Mrs. Clemm will believe the statement which I here make to you, that I have never spoken of him but in words of extenuation and kindness — never thought of him but with feelings of unalterable sympathy, compassion, and admiration. I am the more anxious that she should know this because I have reason to believe that others have sought to impress her with a contrary opinion — I also wish her to know that our separation was not the result of any deliberate act of my own, far less of any change in my feelings toward him — I knew from the first that our engagement was a most imprudent one — I clearly foresaw all the perils and penalties to which it would expose but having cemented to it (under circumstances which seemed to make life or death, happiness or misery alike indifferent to me) I resolved not to retract my promise — nor would I have done so — the union to which I was so rashly urged, and to which I so rashly consented, was in the end prevented by circumstances over which I had no control — by a fatality which no act of mine could have averted — and I can only account for the reproachful tone of Mr. Poe’s last letter by supposing (as he indeed therein suggested) that ‘some person equally his enemy and mine’ had sought by the most false and groundless assertions to make him believe that my friendship for him changed into disgust and abhorrence — Perhaps Mrs. Clemm can tell me from whence these reports originated. — but it is a matter or little moment now, for I trust that he now sees my heart and knows that I have never wronged him in thought word or deed — Will you excuse me for troubling you with these statements and will you make them known to Mrs. Clemm whenever you may have a convenient opportunity of doing so.”(1)

Poe was now gone, and through no human means could Mrs. Whitman communicate further with him. For any future relations she would have to resort entirely to the metaphysical. But throughout the whole period of her association with him, Poe had sought to persuade Mrs. Whitman that their affinity was not of this earth; and now that his soul had fled, she, in her spiritual faith, would feel no severance of the occult tie.

To Sarah Whitman Poe was a man who possessed a rarely gifted mind, a mind which because of its peculiarities of psychic and physical organization was accessible to the subtle vibrations of an ethereal medium, which conveyed but feeble impressions to the senses of ordinary persons.

“A mind which, ‘following darkness like a dream,’ wondered forever with insatiate curiosity on the confines of that

‘Wild, weird clime, that lieth sublime

Out of Space, out of Time!

By each spot the most unholy,

In each nook most melancholy.’

seeking to solve the problem of that phantasmal Shadow-Land, which, through a class of phenomena unprecedented in the world’s history, was about to attest itself as an actual place of conscious and progressive life, the mode and measure of whose relations with our own are already recognized as legitimate objects of scientific research by the most candid and competent thinkers of our time.”(1) She saw in him an unconscious spiritual medium acting through the purpose of God and anticipating scientific wonders shortly to be proven. She had never felt that Poe had been entirely separated from her, and she had sometimes employed astrological means of communicating with him. she never lost faith in the fact that he was seeking to establish from another world that spiritual communication with her which had been his ambition when alive. Mrs. Whitman was now to spend some time in attempting a communication with Poe by of spiritualistic mediums. Mrs. Whitman did feel that she more than once came into communication with the spirit of Poe. Mrs. Whitman had conceived a most profound, affectionate, and religious attachment for Edgar Poe . … Mrs. Whitman and Miss Gould occupied a room adjoining mine, the door between being left open, and I heard some fragments of what passed, which were more fully explained in the morning. Mrs. Whitman had been awake, impressed with the presence of Poe. Never had he been more palpably before her; and he seemed eager to [page 393:] say something, as if he importuned her to do for him a kindness, extend some aid, which she could not understand, when Miss Gould turned in her sleep, and murmured distinctly: ‘Pray For me, Helen; pray for me,’ the medium being able to interpret the meaning of the spirit urgency. From this time Helen had an office to perform, in the exercise of which she never faltered. She devoted herself to rescue the fame of the poet from the odium with which wicked and envious minds had so endeavoured to blacken it.

on November 13, 1848 at the Westminster Street studio of Masury and Hartshorn in Providence, Rhode Island, after a tumultuous week which included an overdose of laudanum and a bout of heavy drinking. The daguerreotype was a gift from Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman, given to her after she finally consented to marry him. The engagement did not last long, but Whitman kept the daguerreotype until 1874. In a letter she noted Poe’s “sweet and serene expression” in the image.

Throughout her life Mrs. Whitman has a succession of adorers, and her han was sought in marriage, even in her latest years, by men who had long given her their devoted allegiance.

The Last Flowers

Dost thou remember that Autumnal day

When by the Seekonk’s lonely wave we stood

And marked the languor of repose that lay,

Softer than sleep, on valley, wave, and wood?

A trance of holy sadness seemed to lull

The charmed earth and circumambient air,

And the low murmur of the leaves seemed full

Of a resigned and passionless despair.

Thought the warm breath of summer lingered still

On the lone paths where late her footsteps passed,

The pallid star-flowers on the purple hill

Sighed dreamily, “We are the last! the last!”

I stood beside thee, and a dream of heaven

Around me like a golden halo fell!

Then the bright veil of fantasy was riven,

And my lips murmured, “Fare thee well! – farewell!”

I dared not listen to thy words, nor turn

To meet the mystic language of thine eyes,

I only felt their power, and in the urn

Of memory, treasured their sweet rhapsodies.

We parted then forever, – and the hours

Of that bright day were gathered to the past, –

But through long wintry nights, I heard the flowers

Sigh dreamily, “We are the last! – the last!”

With an essay by Brett Rutherford. Second edition, expanded and revised, 2003/2005, first paperback edition 2008. Fourth Edition, Expanded and Revised, December 2011, with additional annotations and illustrations.
This is the definitive book on Edgar Allan Poe’s doomed romance with Providence poet Sarah Helen Whitman, and the first time her poetry has been available in print since 1916. This book contains the poems both poets wrote about one another, and the best work they might have read to one another during their courtship. The essay traces Poe’s 28 days in Providence in detail, as well as the genealogy and family history of Mrs. Whitman. Additionally, an appreciation of Sarah Helen Whitman’s highly romantic poetry helps to place her in the pantheon of American women poets where she belongs.

EXCERPTS FROM THE INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

During these years, Sarah Helen maintained her place in a literary America that was exploding with new philosophical ideas. Despite the pious underpinnings of New England society, the 1840s were a decade of intellectual turmoil: end-ofthe- world prophecies, new native religions, Brook Farm, the antislavery movement, spiritualism, and the restless intellectual odyssey of Emerson and the Transcendentalists. Science was advancing in leaps and bounds, and poets and essayists all felt that they had to take it all in and make sense of it.

Their problem was that they carried all the baggage of Platonic thought in a world that was becoming mechanistic and Aristotelian. It may seem strange to us that the same persons who read natural science and astronomy tomes also troubled themselves about souls, ghosts and Divinity. This is the complex world in which they lived. We can laugh at Transcendental abolitionists talking at seances to ghosts of dead Indians, but we do not have to look far to see equally bizarre belief-complexes among the intellectual class today.

The 1840s also represented a watershed for literacy and the appreciation of culture in America. Boston really was the Athens of the United States, and the roster of American writers active in mid-century was staggering. The Lyceum movement brought thousands of young people to hear writers and artists lecture, and lending libraries insured that working class people could have access to books. The prices of books were also falling dramatically during that period because of the introduction of the rotary printing press. Americans were proving to the world that high culture was for everyone. For an overview of literary America during this period, one of the best sources is still the classic book, The Flowering of New England: 1815-1865, by Van Wyck Brooks (E.P . Dutton, 1936).

In the early 1840s, Edgar Allan Poe had made his mark with stories, criticism, literary hoaxes and poems. His career was followed with interest, if not always approval, by his fellow critics. He had pretty much thrown the gauntlet against the New England literati in favor of the writers of New York.

*** ***

In 1845, Edgar Poe’s personal, financial and romantic calamities piled one upon another in New York. Poe gained control of The Broadway Journal and secured financing for it. By late July his backer was referring to Poe as “a drunken sot.” Poe’s book of Tales Grotesque and Arabesque, meantime, was being reviewed everywhere, and the fame of his poem, “The Raven,” flew throughout the states. In August, a visitor to the offices of The Broadway Journal found Poe “irascible, surly, and in his cups.” In the August issue of the Journal, Poe reviewed a poem by Lowell and accused him of plagiarizing Wordsworth, and inaccurately quoted Wordsworth to prove it. Lowell wrote to Poe’s partner that his editor lacked character, and got a commiserating letter back saying, “[Poe’s] presumption is beyond the liveliest imagination.” By the end of August, Poe was begging a $50 loan from Chivers to sustain the magazine.

On October 1, despite all these troubles, Poe sent the manuscript of The Raven and Other Poems off to the printer.

Poe managed to irritate the Boston literary world on October 16, when he was paid $50 to read a new poem as part of a Lyceum program. Unable to write anything new for the entire preceding month, Poe trekked to Boston and substituted “Al Aaraaf,” a juvenile work, re-titling it “The Messenger Star.” He did an encore reading of “The Raven.” Then he went home and boasted in The Broadway Journal of having given Boston old goods. Reviews in Boston suggested that most of the audience fled before the poem was over, and numerous letters to journal editors pilloried Poe over his behavior.

Poe’s tale, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” was circulated at this time under several titles in newspapers and magazines, and caused a stir in New England, where it was taken by many to be a factual account. It describes a man whose soul was retained after death through the power of hypnotism. The final sequence, in which Valdemar’s body dissolves into a putrescent mass when the hypnotic spell is broken, should have made it clear that this was a horror story. Sarah Helen Whitman, a student of mesmerism, wrote to friends in New York, begging to know whether Poe’s story was true.

Sarah Helen would later write: “I can never forget the impressions I felt in reading a story of his for the first time … I experienced a sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither look at anything he had written nor even utter his name … By degrees this terror took the character of fascination — I devoured with a half-reluctant and fearful avidity every line that fell from his pen.”

*** ***

Sarah Helen Whitman lived for three more decades [after the broken engagement with Poe.] In 1853, she published the poems she had written to and about Poe. In 1860, two years after the death of her mother, she published Edgar Poe and His Critics, a small but well-reasoned defense of Poe’s writing and reputation. Although she seldom left Providence, she published her poems in major magazines and newspapers, and maintained correspondence with writers around the world. Her loyalty to Poe and her unselfish help to Poe biographers over the decades helped turn the tide of popular opinion against those who had slandered him. Helen’s achievement is one of the great vindications in literary history.