Chronological, 1827 – 1849
Eight poems, spanning Poe's whole writing life — from a bruised twenty-year-old's first pamphlet to the elegies he was still refining the year he died.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…"
Eighteen stanzas of grief circling a single word. The poem that made him famous — and paid him almost nothing.
"It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea…"
Written in the last months of his life, and read by nearly everyone since as a poem for Virginia.
"Hear the sledges with the bells — Silver bells!…"
Four kinds of bell, four stages of life — the poem is built almost entirely out of its own sound.
"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were…"
Not published in his lifetime — found among his papers decades after his death.
"Gaily bedight, a gallant knight…"
A knight rides his whole life toward a place that may not exist. Written during the gold rush.
"Take this kiss upon the brow!…"
Sand slipping through fingers, and the suspicion that everything else is slipping the same way.
"Helen, thy beauty is to me…"
A short, classical love poem — the "Nicean barks" line that critics still argue over.
"Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!…"
A rehearsal, in some ways, for The Raven — mourners arguing over how to grieve correctly.