Page:The Raven; with literary and historical commentary.djvu/44

 30 as they are shown in the variorum readings at the end of the poem itself; but the improvement made in the latter portion of the eleventh stanza, from the original version of—

to its present masterly roll of melancholy music, is too radical to be passed by in silence.

Although his pride could not but be deeply gratified by the profound impression The Raven had made on the public, Poe himself far preferred many of his less generally appreciated poems, and, as all true poets at heart must feel, with justice. Some of his juvenile pieces appeared to him to manifest more faithfully the true poetic intuition; they, he could not but feel, were the legitimate offspring of inspiration, whilst The Raven was, to a great extent, the product of art—although, it is true, of art controlling and controlled by genius. Writing to a correspondent upon this subject, Poe remarked,—

"What you say about the blundering criticism of 'the Hartford Review' man ' is just. For the purposes of poetry it is quite sufficient that a thing is possible, or at least that the improbability be not offensively glaring. It is true that in several ways, as you say, the lamp might have thrown the bird's shadow on the floor. My conception was that of the bracket candelabrum affixed against the wall, high up above the door and bust, as is often seen in the