In his own life—with that lovely consumptive Child-bride dying by his side—Edgar Allen Poe lived as "morally," as rigidly, as any Monk. The popular talk about his being a "Drug-Fiend" is ridiculous nonsense. He was a laborious artist, chiselling and refining his "artificial" poems, day in and day out. Where his "immorality" lies is much deeper. It is in the mind—the mind, Master Shallow!—for he is nothing if not an absolute "Cerebralist." Certainly Poe's verses are "artificial." They are the most artificial of all poems ever written. And this is natural, because they were the premeditated expression of a premeditated cult. But to say they are artificial does not derogate from their genius. Would that there were more such "artificial" verses in the world!
One wonders if it is clearly understood how the "unearthly" element in Poe differs from the "unearthly" element in Shelley. It differs from it precisely as Death differs from Life.
Shelley's ethereal spiritualism—though, God knows, such gross animals are we, it seems inhuman enough—is a passionate white flame. It is the thin, wavering fire-point of all our struggles after purity and eternity. It is a centrifugal emotion, not, as was the other's, a centripedal one. It is the noble Platonic rising from the love of one beautiful person to the love of many beautiful persons; and from that onward, through translunar gradations, to the love of the supreme Beauty itself. Shelley's "spirituality" is a living, growing, creative thing. In its intrinsic nature it is not egoistic at all, but profoundly altruistic. It uses Sex to leave Sex behind. In its higher levels it is absolutely Sexless. It may transcend humanity, but it springs from humanity. It is, in fact, humanity's dream of its own transmutation. For all its ethereality and remoteness, it yearns, "like a God in pain," over the sorrows of the world. With infinite planetary pity, it would heal those sorrows.
Edgar Allen's "spirituality" has not the least flicker of a longing to "leave Sex behind." It is bound to Sex, as the insatiable Ghoul is bound to the Corpse he devours. It is not concerned with the physical ecstasies of Sex. It has no interest in such human matters. But deprive it of the fact of Sex-difference, and it drifts away whimpering like a dead leaf, an empty husk, a wisp of chaff, a skeleton gossamer. The poor, actual, warm lips, "so sweetly forsworn," may have had small interest for this "spiritual" lover, but now that she is dead and buried, and a ghost, they must remain a woman's lips forever! Nor have Edgar Allen's "faithful ones" the remotest interest in what goes on around them. Occupied with their Dead, their feeling towards common flesh and blood is the feeling of Caligula. "What have I done to thee?" that proud, reserved face seems to say, as it looks out on us from its dusty title-page; "what have I done to thee, that I should despise thee so?"
Shelley's clear, erotic passion is always a "cosmic" thing. It is the rhythmic expression of the power that creates the world. But there is nothing "cosmic" about the enclosed gardens of Edgar Allen Poe; and the spirits that walk among those Moon-dials and dim Parterres are not of the kind who go streaming up, from land and ocean, shouting with joy that Prometheus has conquered! But what a master he is—what a master! In the suggestiveness of names—to mention only one thing—can anyone touch him? That word "Porphyrogene"—the name of the Ruler of, God knows what, Kingdom of the Dead—does it not linger about one—and follow one—like the smell of incense?
But the poem of all poems in which the very genius Edgar Allen is embodied is, of course, "Ulalume." Like this, there is nothing; in Literature—nothing in the whole field of human art. Here he is, from beginning to end, a supreme artist; dealing with the subject for which he was born! That undertone of sardonic, cynical humour—for it can be called nothing else—which grins at us in the background like the grin of a Skull; how extraordinarily characteristic it is! And the touches of "infernal colloquialism," so deliberately fitted in, and making us remember—many things!—is there anything in the world like them?
"And now as the night was senescent,
And the star-dials hinted of morn,
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte's be-diamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn!"
"And I said"—but let us pass to his Companion. The cruelty of this conversation with "Psyche" is a thing that may well make us shudder. The implication is, of course, double. Psyche is his own soul; the soul in him which would live, and grow, and change, and know the "Vita Nuova." She is also "the Companion," to whom he has turned for consolation. She is the Second One, the Other One, in whose living caresses he would forget, if it might be, that which lies down there in the darkness!
"Then Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said, 'sadly this star I mistrust,
Its pallor I strangely mistrust.
O hasten! O let us not linger!
O fly! Let us fly! for we must!'"
Thus the Companion; thus the Comrade; thus the "Vita Nuova"!