Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/229

Rh 'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day Beside you, and lie down at night by you Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, And all at once they leave you, and you know them

If Browning needs reenforcement, it may be found in Shakespeare:

The setting sun, and music at the close. As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

In his famous Preface to the Poems of 1845 Poe writes

"These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while going 'the rounds of the press.' I am naturally anxious that if what I have written is to circulate at all, it should circulate as I wrote it. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent on me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not—^they cannot at will be excited with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind."

Poe, it may be added, was a ceaseless reviser of the text of his poems, and his revisions were uniformly