SIR――I have noticed with interest and astonishment the remarks made in different issues of your paper respecting Edgar A. Poe’s “Raven,” and I think the following fantastic poem (a copy of which I enclose), written by the poet whilst experimenting towards the production of that wonderful and beautiful piece of mechanism, may possibly interest your numerous readers. “The Fire-Fiend” (the title of the poem I enclose) Mr. Poe considered incomplete and threw it aside in disgust. Some months afterwards, finding it amongst his papers, he sent it in a letter to a friend, labelled facetiously, “To be read by fire-light at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum.” I was intimately acquainted with the mother-in-law of Poe, and have frequently conversed with her respecting “The Raven,” and she assured me that he had the idea in his mind for some years, and used frequently to repeat verses of it to her and ask her opinion of them, frequently making alterations and improvements, according to the mood he chanced to be in at the time, Mrs. Clemm, knowing the great study I had given to “The Raven,” and the reputation I had gained by its recital throughout America, took great interest in giving me all the information in her power, and the life and writings of Edgar A. Poe have been the topic of our conversation for hours. Respectfully, M. M.’CREADY.” London, August 31. THE FIRE-FIEND. A NIGHTMARE. I. In the deepest depth of midnight, while the sad solemn swell Still was floating, faintly echoed from the Forest Chapel Bell―― Faintly, falteringly floating o’er the sable waves of air That were through the Midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling―― In my chamber I lay dreaming by the fire-light’s fitful gleaming, And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart fore-doomed to Care! II. At the last long lingering echo of the midnight’s mystic chime―― Lifting through the sable billows to the Thither Shore of time―― Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace―― In a quivering sigh departed; from my couch in fear I started: Started to my feet in terror, for my Dream’s phantasmal error Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming face! III. On the red hearth’s reddest centre, from a blazing knot of oak, Seemed to gibe and grin this Phantom when in terror I awoke, And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to the floor, Still in that dread Vision seeming, turned my eyes toward the gleaming Hearth, and――there! oh, God! I saw it! and from out its flaming Jaw it Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore!