In "A Dream" he thus again alludes to her:
"That holy dream, that holy dream, When all the world was chiding, Hath cheered me like a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. "What though that light through storm and night Still trembles from afar? What could there be more purely bright Than truth's day-star?"
About the same time he wrote the lines, "To My Mother," the only one of his poems in which he alluded to his wife, concluding with the couplet:
"By that infinitude which made my wife Dearer unto my soul than its own life."
It will be observed that the sentimental things, in both prose and verse, which Poe has written concerning his love for his wife—and they are but two or three at most—were written immediately after his affair with Mrs. Osgood and the universal charge against him that he had deserted a dying wife for her sake. It is impossible that at this remote period of time it could be understood how seriously—from all contemporaneous accounts—Poe's reputation was affected by this unfortunate episode; especially at the North, where it was best known.
When Miss Poe left Fordham, in July, she carried with her a letter from Mrs. Clemm to Mr. John Mackenzie, soliciting pecuniary aid for Edgar on plea of his wretched health. Mr. Mackenzie was at this time married and with a family of his own, but he never lost his interest in his old friend or ceased to assist him so far as was in his power.