Page:The Raven; with literary and historical commentary.djvu/19

 Rh renders all but certain that the author had come across the book in which the poems appear."

Whether or no Poe ever saw The Gem for 1831, is almost immaterial to inquire, but that so common a poetic phrase as "No More" supplied him, fourteen years later, with his melancholy burden of "Never More" no one can believe. In truth, for many years "No More" had been a favorite refrain with Poe: in his poem To One in Paradise, the publication of which is traceable back to July, 1835, is the line,

"No more—no more—no more!"

In the sonnet To Zante, published in January, 1837, the sorrowful words occur five times,

"! alas, that magical sad sound Transforming all!"

whilst in the sonnet To Silence, published in April, 1840, "No More" again plays a leading part. The first at least of these three poems there is good reason to believe had been written as early as 1832 or 1833. As regards Poe's favorite name of Lenore, an early use of it may be pointed out in his poem entitled "Lenore," published in the Pioneer for 1842, the germ of the said poem having been first published in 1831.

We are now about to touch more solid ground. In 1843 Edgar Poe appears to have been writing for The New Mirror, a New York periodical edited by his two acquaintances, G. P. Morris and N. P. Willis. In the number for October the 14th appeared some verses entitled Isadore: they were by Albert Pike, the author of an Ode to The Mocking Bird and other pieces once well-known. In an editorial note by Willis, it was stated that Isadore had been written by its author