American Authors

The Lighthouse by Edgar Allan Poe Jan 1 — 1796. This day — my first on the light-house — I make this entry in my Diary, as agreed on with De Grät. As regularly as I can keep the journal, I will — but there is no telling what may happen to a man all […]

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THE BELLS POEM by Edgar Allan Poe I. Hear the sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In […]

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TO HELEN POEM by Edgar Allan Poe [Helen was Mrs. Whitman.] I saw thee once—once only—years ago: I must not say how many—but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of […]

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Lines on Ale Poem by Edgar Allan Poe Fill with mingled cream and amber I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain – Quaintest thoughts – queerest fancies Come to life and fade away; What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today. Believed to […]

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Evangeline Poem by Edgar Allan Poe Do tell when shall we make common sense men out of the owl-eyed pundits Out of The Frog-faced stupid old God-born Pundits who lost in a fog-bank Strut about all along shore there somewhere close by the Down East Frog Duck Pond munching of pea nuts and pumpkins and […]

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An Enigma Poem by Edgar Allan Poe “Seldom we find,” says Solomon Don Dunce, “Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. Through all the flimsy things we see at once As easily as through a Naples bonnet— Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it? Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff— Owl-downy nonsense […]

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On the Mexican War Letter by Abraham Lincoln ON THE MEXICAN WAR TO WILLIAM H. HERNDON. WASHINGTON, February 15, 1848. DEAR WILLIAM:—Your letter of the 29th January was received last night. Being exclusively a constitutional argument, I wish to submit some reflections upon it in the same spirit of kindness that I know actuates you. […]

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An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 1 by Edgar Allan Poe An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 1 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 2 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 3 EUREKA: A PROSE POEM. BY EDGAR A. POE. NEW-YORK: GEO. P. […]

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An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 2 by Edgar Allan Poe An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 1 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 2 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 3 Let me now describe the sole possible mode in which it […]

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An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 3 by Edgar Allan Poe An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 1 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 2 An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe Part 3 We have now reached a point from which we behold the […]

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The Rationale of Verse by Edgar Allan Poe THE RATIONALE OF VERSE THE WORD “Verse” is here used not in its strict or primitive sense, but as the term most convenient for expressing generally and without pedantry all that is involved in the consideration of rhythm, rhyme, metre, and versification. There is, perhaps, no topic […]

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TO Mrs. Marie Louise Shew Poem by Edgar Allan Poe Not long ago, the writer of these lines, In the mad pride of intellectuality, Maintained “the power of words”—denied that ever A thought arose within the human brain Beyond the utterance of the human tongue: And now, as if in mockery of that boast, Two […]

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