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 THE UNIQUE GENIUS OF POE'S POETRY

OLIVER HUCKEL, S.T.D.

It is not my part to tell the story of Poe's life or to discuss its problems. Nor is it my duty to defend the fame of Poe. In spite of all detractors, his fame is secure among the immortals. But my pleasant task is merely to sound forth another note of appreciation among the many tributes that are being made to his memory and especially to speak a few words concerning the distinctive genius of his poetry. The exquisite notes of witchery in the poems of Poe, and their pure song-quality, lift him to a place in the choir of the world's great singers,—not among the stately epic poets, such as Homer, Milton, or Dante; nor with the masters of the poetic drama, such as Sophocles, Shakespeare or Schiller; but rather among those wonderful skylarks of song who have poured forth their souls in rapturous lyrics, as perchance Sappho of the immortal fragments and traditions; as Herrick, fresh as the morning dew of his seventeenth century; as Shelley, an echo of far ethereal melodies; or, as Keats, the soul of supernal beauty, or Robert Burns, voice of the heart and of all human tenderness and nobility.

We have had some worthy names to conjure with in our American literature,—Emerson, poet oracular and prophet of another sphere; Longfellow, the exquisite