The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe Book

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
POEMS. PREFACE TO THE POEMS. 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 at random "the rounds of the press." I am naturally anxious that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate at all. In defense of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think nothing in this volume ot 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. E. A. P. POEMS. THE RAVEN. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my cham-ber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly 1 wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of ...