In addition to the curious circumstances attending the
creation of these poems, many of them are very beautiful. In those
purporting to have been dictated by the spirit of Poe, the similarity of
style is quite remarkable. His alliterations, his frequent assonances
and rhymes, his chiming and ever-musical rhythms are wonderfully well
reproduced. But has he learned nothing new to tell us in those 'supernal
spheres'? Has he struck upon no new path in those weird regions, grasped
no fresh and startling thought to weave into the perfect music of his
lines? Nay, has he learned no new tunes, chimes, or rhythms 'where the
angels' feet make music over all the starry floor'? Could he not lift
for us the veil of Isis? The 'inspiration' from Shakspeare we regard as
a total failure. He who never repeated himself on earth, comes to us who
love him, after his long residence in heaven, and travesties his own
matchless dramas by weak quotations from them, as if he had been
cogitating only his own words through the new scenes of glory which had
opened before him. Our great Shakspeare has grown none in the passing
centuries--comes from the empyrean to gabble like a dotard of the
visions of his youth? We quote from the poem:
'Man learns in this Valhalla of his soul
To love, nor ever finds 'Love's Labor Lost.
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