The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [988]
For “eternal,” he says “eterne”: as at page 30:
Has risen, and an eterne sun now paints.
For “friendless,” he substitutes “friendless; “ as at page 31:
Are drawn in other figures. Not friendless.
To “future,” he prefers “future: “ as at page 32:
Sometime of sorrow. Joy to thy future.
To “azure,” in the same way, he prefers “azure: “ as at page 46:
Ye stand each separate in the azure.
In place of “unheard,” he writes “unheard:” as thus, at page 47:
Or think, tho’ unheard, that your sphere is dumb.
In place of “perchance,” he writes “per chance:” as at page 71:
When per chance sorrow with her icy smile.
Instead of “more infinite,” he writes “infiniter,” with an accent on the “nit,” as thus, at page 100:
Hope’s child, I summon infiniter powers.
And here we might as well ask Mr. Channing, in passing, what idea he attaches to infinity, and whether he really thinks that he is at liberty to subject the adjective “infinite” to degrees of comparison. Some of these days we shall hear, no doubt, of “eternal, eternaler, and eternalest.”
Our author is quite enamoured of the word “sumptuous,” and talks about “sumptuous trees” and “sumptuous girls,” with no other object, we think, than to employ the epithet at all hazards and upon all occasions. He seems unconscious that it means nothing more than expensive, or costly; and we are not quite sure that either trees or girls are, in America, either the one or the other.
For “loved” Mr. C. prefers to say “was loving,” and takes great pleasure in the law phrase “the same.” Both peculiarities are examplified at page 20, where he says:
The maid was loving this enamoured same.
He is fond, also, of inversions and contractions, and employs them in a very singular manner. At page 15 he has:
Now may I thee describe a Paradise.
At page 86 he says:
Thou lazy river, flowing neither way
Me figurest and yet thy banks seem gay.
At page 143 he writes:
Men change that Heaven above not more;
meaning that men change so much that Heaven above does not change more. At page 150 he says:
But so much soul hast thou within thy form
Than luscious summer days thou art the more;
by which he would imply that the lady has so much soul within her form that she is more luscious than luscious summer days.
Were we to quote specimens under the general head of “utter and irredeemable nonsense,” we should quote nine-tenths of the book. Such nonsense, we mean, as the following, from page 11:
I hear thy solemn anthem fall,
Of richest song upon my ear,
That clothes thee in thy golden pall
As this wide sun flows on the mere.
Now let us translate this: He hears (Mr. Channing,) a solemn anthem, of richest song, fall upon his ear, and this anthem clothes the individual who sings it in that individual’s golden pall, in the same manner that, or at the time when, the wide sun flows on the mere — which is all very delightful, no doubt.
At page 37, he informs us that,
—— It is not living,
To a soul believing,
To change each noble joy,
Which our strength employs,
For a state half rotten
And a life of toys,
And that it is
Better to be forgotten
Than lose equipoise.
And we dare say it is, if one could only understand what kind of equipoise is intended. It is better to be forgotten, for instance, than to lose one’s equipoise on the top of a shot tower.
Occupying the whole of page 88, he has the six lines which follow, and we will present any one (the author not excepted,) with a copy of the volume, if any one will tell us what they are all about:
He came and waved a little silver wand,
He dropped the veil that hid a statue fair,
He drew a circle with that pearly hand,
His grace confin’d that beauty in the air,
Those limbs so gentle now at rest from flight,
Those quiet eyes now musing on the night.
At page 102, he has the following: —
Dry leaves with yellow ferns, they are
Fit wreath of Autumn, while a star
Still, bright, and pure, our frosty air
Shivers in twinkling points
Of thin celestial hair
And thus one side of Heaven anoints.
This we think we can