Poe declared this to be hopeless, and that it was, in fact, the chief cause of his dissatisfaction with the poem. Indeed, it may well excite surprise that he, so careful and fastidious as to the completeness of his work, should have allowed The Raven to go from his hands marred by a defect so glaring, but this is proof that he did indeed regard it as hopeless.
When Mr. Poe left us on this September morning he took with him this manuscript copy of The Raven; which, however, he on the following day handed to me, begging that I would keep it until his return from New York. I found that he had marked several minor defects in the poem, one of which was his objection to the word "shutter," as being too commonplace and not agreeing with the word "lattice," previously used.
He remarked, before leaving for New York, that he intended having The Raven, after some further work upon it, published in an early number of the Stylus. I do not doubt but that, had he lived, he would have made it much more perfect than it now is.
After his death his friend, Mr. Robert Sully, the Richmond artist, was desirous of making a picture of the Raven, but explained to me why it could not be done—all on account of that impossible "shadow on the floor." Of course, said he, to produce such an effect the lamplight must come from above and behind the bust and the bird. No; it was impracticable."
This set me to thinking; and the result was that I, some time after, went to Mr. Sully's studio and said to him: "How would it do to have a glass transom above the door; one of those large fan-shaped transoms which we sometimes find in old colonial mansions, opening on a lofty galleried hall?"
It would do, he said. Indeed, with such an arrangement, and the lamp supposed to be suspended from the hall ceiling, as in those old mansions, there would be no difficulty with either the poem or the picture. And we were both delighted at our discovery, and thought how pleased Poe would have been with the idea—so effective in explaining that mysterious shadow on the floor.
Mr. Sully commenced upon his picture, but died before completing it.
This manuscript copy of The Raven, with all its pencil-marks, as made by Mr. Poe on that September morning, remained in my possession for many years. It is yet photographed upon my memory, with all the details here given from an odd leaf of a journal which I kept about that time—the quiet parlor, the outside drizzle, the books, the roses, and the face and figure of Mr. Poe as he gravely bent over that manuscript copy of his immortal poem of The Raven.