The poetical works of Edgar Allan Poe, with original memoir. Illustrated by F. R. Pickersgill, R.A., John Tenniel, Birket Foster, Felix Darlay [and others]

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.
It hath taught me that which I most cherished
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most difficult, the versification could
scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is
the soul-elevating idea, that no man can consider himself entitled to complain
of Fate while, in his adversity, he still retains the unwavering love of
woman.
From Alfred Tennyson-although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the
noblest poet that ever lived-I have left myself time to cite only a very brief
specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets —not because the
impressions he produces are, at all times, the most profound-not because the
poetical excitement which he induces is, at cell times, the most intense-but
because it is, at all times, the most ethereal-in other words, the most
elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy.
What I am about to read is from his last long poem, " The Princess: "
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
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