In one of his great stories, which is not supernatural, _The Pit and the Pendulum_, he desires to impress the reader with the horrors of medieval punishment. We may wonder why the underground dungeon is so large, why the ceiling is thirty feet high, why a pendulum appears from an opening in that ceiling. But we know when the dim light, purposely admitted from above, discloses the prisoner strapped immovably on his back, and reveals the giant pendulum, edged with the sharpest steel, slowly descending, its arc of vibration increasing as the terrible edge almost imperceptibly approaches the prisoner. We find ourselves bound with him, suffering from the slow torture. We would escape into the upper air if we could, but Poe's hypnotic power holds us as helpless as a child while that terrible edge descends. A comparison of these stories and the most successful ones published since Poe's time, on the one hand, with those written by Irving or Hawthorne, on the other, will show the influence of Poe's technique in making almost a new creation of the modern short story. [Illustration: HOUSE WHERE POE WROTE "THE RAVEN" (Near Eighty-fourth Street, New York)] POETRY.--Poe wrote a comparatively small amount of verse. Of the forty-eight poems which he is known to have written, not more than nine are masterpieces, and all of these are short. It was a favorite article of his poetic creed that there could be no such creation as a long poem, that such a poem would in reality be a series of poems. He thought that each poem should cause only one definite emotional impression, and that a long poem would lack the necessary unity. He says that he determined in advance that _The Raven_ should contain about one hundred lines. His poetic aim was solely "the creation of beauty." He says:-- "Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the _tone_ of its highest manifestation; and all experience has shown that this tone is one of _sadness_. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones." [Footnote: _The Philosophy of Composition_.] He then concludes that death is the most melancholy subject available for a poet, and that the death of a beautiful woman "is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." From the popularity of _The Raven_ at home and abroad, in comparison with other American poems, it would seem as if the many agreed with Poe and felt the fascination of the burden of his song:-- "Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF FIRST STANZA OF ANNABEL LEE] His most beautiful poem, _Annabel Lee_, is the dirge written for his wife, and it is the one great poem in which he sounds this note of lasting triumph:--