Poetry Poem by Edgar Allan Poe
Last night, with many cares and toils oppress’d
Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest —
This is the earliest surviving manuscript in Poe’s own hand. It is written on the same page as some financial records for John Allan’s business. These notes were filed among the Ellis & Allan papers for November 1824. (John Allan, it should be remembered, was the young Edgar’s foster-father. Facsimiles of this manuscript may be found in T. O. Mabbott, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe – Volume I: Poems, 1969, facing p. 582 and Hervey Allen, Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, 1934, facing p. 77.
