Again the young man turned to poetry, not only as a solace but as a means of earning a livelihood.  Again he printed a little volume of poems, which included his longest piece, “Al Aaraaf,” and several others now deemed classic.  The book was a great advance upon his previous collection, but failed to obtain any amount of public praise or personal profit for its author.

Feeling the difficulty of living by literature at the same time that he saw he might have to rely largely upon his own exertions for a livelihood, Poe expressed a wish to enter the army.  After no little difficulty a cadetship was obtained for him at the West Point Military Academy, a military school in many respects equal to the best in Europe for the education of officers for the army.  At the time Poe entered the Academy it possessed anything but an attractive character, the discipline having been of the most severe character, and the accommodation in many respects unsuitable for growing lads.

The poet appears to have entered upon this new course of life with his usual enthusiasm, and for a time to have borne the rigid rules of the place with unusual steadiness.  He entered the institution on the 1st July, 1830, and by the following March had been expelled for determined disobedience.  Whatever view may be taken of Poe’s conduct upon this occasion, it must be seen that the expulsion from West Point was of his own seeking.  Highly-colored pictures have been drawn of his eccentric behavior at the Academy, but the fact remains that he wilfully, or at any rate purposely, flung away his cadetship.  It is surmised with plausibility that the second marriage of Mr. Allan, and his expressed intention of withdrawing his help and of not endowing or bequeathing this adopted son any of his property, was the mainspring of Poe’s action.  Believing it impossible to continue without aid in a profession so expensive as was a military life, he determined to relinquish it and return to his long cherished attempt to become an author.

Expelled from the institution that afforded board and shelter, and discarded by his former protector, the unfortunate and penniless young man yet a third time attempted to get a start in the world of letters by means of a volume of poetry.  If it be true, as alleged, that several of his brother cadets aided his efforts by subscribing for his little work, there is some possibility that a few dollars rewarded this latest venture.  Whatever may have resulted from the alleged aid, it is certain that in a short time after leaving the Military Academy Poe was reduced to sad straits.  He disappeared for nearly two years from public notice, and how he lived during that period has never been satisfactorily explained.  In 1833 he returns to history in the character of a winner of a hundred-dollar award offered by a newspaper for the best story.