To Isaac Lea Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

It was my choice or chance or curse
To adopt the cause for better or worse
And with my worldly goods & wit
And soul & body worship it —-

From a letter to Isaac Lea, about May 26, 1829. A facsimile of this manuscript, as part of the full letter, was printed in Aurthur Hobson Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941, p. 139.