we see how Poe had
a sort of fascination for the horrible. Notice how he says:

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight.

Here is the complete poem. The young student of poetry may study it
for himself, and discover, if he can, its shortcomings, as we have
pointed out the faults in the poem "Alone."

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less,--
So lovely was the loveliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody,--
Then,--ah, then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight,--
A feeling not the jeweled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define,--
Nor Love--although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining,--
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.

These poems are chiefly interesting as they give us some idea of the
nature of the young poet's mind. Poe had what may be called a
scientific mind, infused through and through with poetry. At times he
was exact, keen-minded, and patient as the scientist; then again he
wandered away into mere fanciful suggestion of things that "never were
on land or sea." His scientific turn we see in his detective stories;
his poetic nature we see struggling against this intellectual
exactness in the following sonnet:

Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

CHAPTER VIII

POE'S CHILD WIFE

While Poe was in Baltimore, after he had begun to earn something by
his pen, he went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. She was