Happily, the restraints of the Academy and his environment there, instead of crushing out young Edgar’s impulse to dream and to put his dreams into writing (as a longer period of the same restraints and conditions might have done) had but quickened and strengthened these very impulses, and he had now but one wish, one aspiration in regard to his newly acquired freedom, and that was to dedicate it to the art of literature which had become more and more his passion and his mistress, and which since he had given up all idea of the army, he was resolved to make his sole profession.

His first step toward this end was to arrange, before leaving New York, for a new edition of his already published work, adding some hitherto unpublished poems which even in the unsympathetic atmosphere of Number 28 South Barracks had been undergoing a refining process in the seething crucible of his brain.

The money for this venture dropped into his lap, as it were, for when the new friends in whom he had confided passed the word around that “the Bard” was going to get out a book of poetry, the cadets (in anticipation of a collection of ditties cleverly hitting off the peculiarities and characteristics of the professors) to a man, subscribed in advance—­at seventy-five cents per copy.  In appreciation of their recognition of his genius, and little guessing what manner of book they expected it to be, “the Bard” gratefully dedicated the new volume “To the United States Corps of Cadets.”

Happy it was for him that he was not present to hear those he had thus honored set up their throats in unanimous expressions of disgust when—­the dedication leaf turned—­they were confronted by a reprint of “Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf,” with the shorter poems, “To Helen,” “A Paean,” “Israfel,” “Fairy-Land,” and other “rubbish,” as they promptly pronounced the entire contents of the book.

“Listen, fellows!” said one of the disgusted lot, with the open volume in his hand.

    “’In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
      Whose heartstrings are a lute. 
    None sing so wildly well
    As the angel, Israfel,
    And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
    Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
      Of his voice, all mute.’”

As he finished this opening stanza of what posterity has ranked as one of the most exquisite lyrics in the English tongue, but which was received by the audience of cadets with guffaws of derision, the reader closed the book with a snap, and dashed it across the room and into the open fire.

“Did you ever hear crazier rubbish?” he asked, with contempt.  “Highway robbery, I call it, to send us such stuff for our good, hard cash!”

“The joke’s on us this time, and no doubt about it,” said the also chagrinned, but more philosophically inclined “Gibs.”  “The Bard means well, though, and no doubt he thinks the stuff is poetry.”

“Old P.” solemnly tapped his forehead with his forefinger.