Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/64

 idealizer of common life; Bryant, the majestic bard of Nature; Whittier, the plaintive psalmist of the new world. But Poe has a rapturous music and a haunting mystery—a ghostly supernatural enchantment that is unique among them all. He is the first absolute artist in our literature—with the rarest rapture of pure music and absolute devotion to pure beauty.

Poe belongs most naturally to that noble group of impassioned Southern singers—Francis Scott Key, the fervid chanter of our national anthem; Father Ryan, the tender mystic of the valley of silence; Henry Timrod, high priest at Nature's altar; Paul Hamilton Hayne, interpreter of the subtle beauty of the South; James R. Randall, the passionate singer of Maryland, My Maryland; Sidney Lanier, prophet of the holiness of beauty, and the beauty of holiness. Poe has distinct place among them all. He is the nightingale of our Southern poets—singing at night, singing on nocturnal themes, but with all the passionate tenderness and infinite pathos of his own angel Israfel "whose heart-strings are a lute."

We do not forget tonight the genius of Poe in the inimitable prose-tales. Such masterly productions as "The Gold Bug," "The Manuscript Found in a Bottle," and the spiritual allegory in "William Wilson," have scarcely been excelled in literature. Neither do we forget the genius of his critical work, keen as a rapier, perhaps a trifle too severe, but marvelously true in the majority of his judgments. But others will speak of these things in some detail. In this brief address, I would merely have you recall something of the genius of his marvelous poetry—such a poem as Israfel just mentioned that came gushing