First let us read that most pathetic of autobiographical poems, “Alone.”  With strange sincerity and directness the poet tells us how his spirit grew and learned the burden of its melancholy, yet scintillating song: 

  From childhood’s hour I have not been
  As others were,—­I have not seen
  As others saw,—­I could not bring
  My passions from a common spring. 
  From the same source I have not taken
  My sorrow; I could not awaken
  My heart to joy at the same tone;
  And all I loved, I loved alone. 
  Then—­in my childhood—­in the dawn
  Of a most stormy life was drawn

  From every depth of good and ill
  The mystery which binds me still: 
  From the torrent, or the fountain,
  From the red cliff of the mountain,
  From the sun that round me rolled
  In its autumn tint of gold,—­
  From the lightning in the sky
  As it passed me flying by,—­
  From the thunder and the storm,
  And the cloud that took the form
  (When the rest of heaven was blue)
  Of a demon in my view.

As a poem written in early youth we should not expect this to be as perfect as “The Raven,” for instance.  Let us see if we can find some of its faults, as well as some of its beauties: 

First, we notice that it ends rather abruptly, as if it were unfinished.  In his essay on “The Poetic Principle” Poe pointed out that many a poem fails of its effect by being too short.  It must not be so long that one is wearied out before it can be read through; at the same time it must be long enough to convey the whole of the idea.  This poem of his own is an example of the fault he himself pointed out.  It is too short to give us clear ideas of all he evidently had in his mind.  We notice, also, that it is rhymed in couplets, that is, every two lines are rhymed together.  Now the couplets in the last half of the poem seem to strike the ear with more satisfaction than those in the first part.  For instance, we are pleased with the sound of these lines: 

  From the torrent, or the fountain,
  From the red cliff of the mountain.

But in some of the lines the pauses of punctuation do not come at the right points to make smooth reading: 

  From the same source I have not taken
  My sorrow; I could not awaken
  My heart to joy at the same tone;
  And all I loved, I loved alone.

The semicolon after “sorrow” should have come at the end of the line instead of in the middle.  Poe had not yet learned the secret of the rhythmic flow which we find in such perfection in “The Bells,” for instance.

But in the last part of the poem we find a beauty of image and comparison that thrills us, and something of that strange, weird suggestiveness which was characteristic of all of Poe’s poetry, the thing he has in common with no other poet.

This weird suggestiveness is found in still greater vividness in another poem entitled “The Lake.”  In this, besides, we see how Poe had a sort of fascination for the horrible.  Notice how he says: