It is frequently asserted that Poe is a single-poem poet—that he is indebted for the niche he now occupies in the Temple of Song mainly to his wonderful poem “The Raven”; and that if “The Raven” had never been written, Poe would now be remembered merely as a skilful weaver of sensational romances, who wrote passable, if somewhat fantastic, verses in his leisure moments. But those who hold this opinion not only do Poe a grave injustice, but admit themselves incapable of appreciating some of the very finest lyrics in the English language. “The Raven,” it is true, is the poem whose artificial qualities appeal most strongly to the fancy of the general reader, and for this reason, if for no other, is entitled to all due respect from the critic; but remarkable as it undoubtedly is, it is open to question whether, considered purely as a poem, it is quite on the same plane with that masterpiece of imagination “The City in the Sea,” the mystical town where “Death has reared himself a throne,” or with that exquisite lyric “The Sleeper,” in which Poe’s inimitable power as a word-painter rises to such a height that we almost seem to see the beautiful dead woman lying pale and still in her “length of tress” waiting to exchange her death-chamber “For one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy.” Again, if neither “The Raven” nor either of the two poems we have just mentioned had been given to the world, such productions as “The Haunted Palace,” “Annabel Lee,” and “To Helen,” to say nothing of “Israfel,” “Ulalume,” and “The Bells,” containing as they do passages of the rarest charm, would surely have sufficed to keep their author’s memory green for all time. What can one possibly desire finer of their kind than those lines from that splendid piece of verbal music, “The Haunted Palace,” which no lover of Poe can resist quoting?— “Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow, (This—all this—was in the olden Time long ago,) And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A wingèd odour went away.” However, although, as we have said, “The Raven” is, in its poetical constituents, probably inferior to some of Poe’s other poems, yet it is in the mind of the average reader so inseparably connected with its author’s claim to rank among “The bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time,” that it may not be out of place to say something about the way in which it came to be written. And first let us remark that the impression that still very generally prevails that “The Raven” was inspired by the death of the poet’s wife—that she is the “Lost Lenore” of the poem—is altogether erroneous, inasmuch as Virginia Poe’s death did not take place until January, 1847, while “The Raven” was first published in February, 1845—nearly two years earlier.