Mrs. Whitman, in her reminiscences of Poe, tells us the following incident which gave rise to the writing of these touching lines. While Poe was in the Academy at Richmond, Virginia,――as yet a boy of about sixteen years,――he was invited by a friend to visit his home. The mother of this friend was a singularly beautiful and withal a most kindly and sympathetic woman. Having learned that Poe was an orphan she greeted him with the motherly tenderness and affection shown toward her own son. The boy was so overcome that it is said he stood for a ♦minute unable to speak and finally with tears he declared he had never before known his loss in the love of a true and devoted mother. From that time forward he was frequently a visitor, and the attachment between him and this kind-hearted woman continued to grow. On Poe’s return from Europe when he was about twenty years of age, he learned that she had died a few days before his arrival, and was so overcome with grief that he went nightly to her grave, even when it was dark and rainy, spending hours in fancied communion with her spirit. Later he idealized in his musings the embodiment of such a spirit in a young and beautiful woman, whom he made his lover and whose untimely death he imagined and used as the inspiration of this poem. ♦ ‘miuute’ replaced with ‘minute’ AH, broken is the golden bowl, The spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll! A saintly soul Floats on the Stygian river; And, GUY DE VERE, Hast _thou_ no tear? Weep now or never more! See, on yon drear And rigid bier Low lies thy love, LENORE! Come, let the burial-rite be read―― The funeral-song be sung!―― An anthem for the queenliest dead That ever died so young―― A dirge for her the doubly dead, In that she died so young! “Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, And hated her for her pride; And when she fell in feeble health, Ye bless’d her――that she died! How _shall_ the ritual, then, be read? The requiem how be sung By you――by yours, the evil eye―― By yours the slanderous tongue That did to death the innocence That died, and died so young?” _Peccavimus_; But rave not thus! And let a sabbath song Go up to God so solemnly, the dead may feel no wrong! The sweet LENORE Hath “gone before,” With Hope, that flew beside, Leaving thee wild For the dear child That should have been thy bride―― For her, the fair And _debonair_, That now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair But not within her eyes―― The life still there, Upon her hair―― The death upon her eyes.