POE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 758, 5 March 1910, Page 9

POE.

Sir. Killis,Campbell, of the University of Texas, has just published the results of. certain researches'on I .the'works of Poe Which add considerably ,to - the bibliography of the poet. By dint of rummaging among old magazines he has succeeded in unearthing not . only many short prose pieces of Poo's hitherto unknown, but also certain interesting variants on some of his poems. Among his "finds" is a 'sonnet on "Silence," very different from the sonnet on 'the same subject contained in his collected poems. Herte it is, as Mr. Campbell found it,in "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine" for September, 1839:—

There is a silence where-hath been no : sound, . i There, is a silence, where no sound may ■ be, • In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea, i - T iOr in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute and still must ; ' sleep profound; No . voice is hushed—no life treads silently, But clouus and cloudy shadows wan- . der.free, That never spoke—over the silent ground; But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where man hath been, Though tho dun fox, or wild hyaena calls, And owls that flit continually between, Shriek" to the echo and the low winds moan, There tho true silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Woodberry, who alone had previously noticed this sonnet, described it as "conjectural]}'" by Poo. The conjecture, however, seems a shrewd one. It is true that it is only signed "l 1 ." But then in the issue of the previous month.there are two poems admittedly by Poo which aro signed only "P." also. 'Moreover, Poe was then editor of the magazine, and had it in. his power to disclaim authorship. The external cyidenec therefore is favourable. In- discussing the internal evidence Mr. Campbell' detects a "parallelism in substance" between the sonnet and

"Hie Vale of Unrest" and "Silence—a Fable," but does not notice that a comparison v/ith the acknowledged sonnet on ■'Silence" reveals not only n resemblanco which confirms identity of authorship, but also a difference which explains why l'oe left this other on tile same subject lo shunter where it first appeared. The resemblance which confirms identity of authorship, but also a difference which explains why l'oe left this other on the same subject to slumber where it ■ first appeared. Tho resemble".Ace consists in tho fact that in both it is exactly the same two sorts oi' silence that are compared—one, that is to bo found in places where man lias never been, and another, where there are signs reminding of men that have passed away. That the same comparison should occur to two minds is unlikely, still more so that both should think of making a sonnet of it. The dilferenco_ is that in tho 0110 case the "real silence" is pronounced to be tho one sort, and in the other it is the other. Evidently to have included in tho same volume two sonnets making the same comparison /and deciding it in different ways would have been absurd.— "Manchester Guardian."