"A form more fair, a face more sweet, And her modest answer and graceful air Would she were mine, and I to-day, No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, But low of cattle and song of birds, But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, And the young girl mused beside the well, He wedded a wife of richest dower, Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again! Free as when I rode that day Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, And oft, when the summer's sun shone hot In the shade of the apple-tree again And, gazing down with timid grace, Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls The weary wheel to a spinet turned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, A manly form at her side she saw, Then she took up her burden of life again, Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, God pity them both! and pity us all, For of all sad words of tongue or pen, Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies And in the hereafter angels may "HE was great in his genius, unhappy in his life, wretched in his death. But in his fame he is immortal." Such are the words inscribed on the bronze and marble memorial of Edgar Allan Poe, set up in the New York Museum of Art in the spring of 1885, thirty-six years after the body of him whom it commemorates had found a nameless grave in a Baltimore churchyard. They outline for us the career of a being of strange endowments, whose personality remains lastingly striking, and whose career is profoundly affecting and instructive. Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809. His father David Poe, was the son of a distinguished officer in the Revolutionary army, and was educated for the bar; but becoming enamored of a beautiful actress he married her, abandoned his profession, and went himself on the stage. Poe has referred to his mother, Elizabeth Arnold, as "a woman who, although well born, hesitated not to consecrate to the drama her brief career of genius and beauty." In a few years the youthful couple died of consumption (within a very short time of each other), leaving three young children entirely destitute, Edgar, the second child, was a remarkably bright and beautiful boy, and at the age of six was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy citizen of Richmond, from whom he received his middle name, Allan. He was educated with great care, and at the age of seven was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Allan to England, and placed in a school at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London, where he remained five or six years. Edgar Allan was then recalled by his adopted father to the Richmond home, where under private tutors he pursued his studies for three or four years. He was sent (1826) to the University of Virginia, where he passed his eighteenth year. He excelled in his studies, and was always at the head of his class; but he became deeply involved in debt, through his strong passion for gaming, and had to leave the university at the close of the year. In 1829 Poe published at Baltimore a volume of poems under the title of Al Aaroof, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. It attracted no attention, and is pronounced by his biographer, the poet Stoddard, “not a remarkable production for a young gentleman of twenty." Afterwards Poe, who, when it suited his purpose, could play fast and loose with dates, tried to make the public believe that the poems were written when he was only fifteen. Soon after this first poetical venture, Poe, through the influence of Mr. Allan, was admitted to a cadetship at West Point. But he neglected his studies, — having probably tired of the prospect of the military career, and indulged in such excesses that (March, 1831) he was cashiered. Returning then to Mr. Allan's home at Richmond, he soon behaved in such a manner that that gentle |