Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/57

 And my lord he loves me well; But when first he breathed his vow The words rang as a knell, And the voice seemed his who fell In the battle down the dell, And who is happy now.

Would God I could awaken! For I dream I know not how, And my soul is sorely shaken Lest an evil step be taken— Lest the dead, who is forsaken, May not be happy now.”

The thought which informs so many of his tales and poems betrays its sad sincerity even in his critical writings, as, for instance, in a notice of “Undine” in the “Marginalia.” Yet it has been said of him that “he had no touch of human feeling or of human pity,” that “he loved no one but himself”—that “he was an abnormal and monstrous creation,”—“possessed by legions of devils.” The most injurious epithets