put him into the counting-room of Ellis & Allan, a position far from
agreeable to one accustomed to counting only poetic feet.

The inevitable rupture soon came, and Poe went to Boston, the city of
his physical birth and destined to become the place of his birth into
the tempestuous world of authorship. Forty copies of "Tamerlane and
Other Poems" appeared upon the shelf of the printer--and nowhere else.
It is said that seventy-three years later a single copy was sold for
$2,250. Had this harvest been reaped by the author in those early
days, who can estimate the gain to the field of literature?

Boston proving inhospitable to the firstling of her gifted son's
imagination, the Common soon missed the solitary, melancholy figure
that had for months haunted the old historic walks. Edgar A. Poe
dropped out of the world, or perhaps out of the delusion of fancying
himself in the world, and Edgar A. "Perry" appeared, an enlisted
soldier in the First Artillery at Fort Independence. For two years
"Perry" served his country in the sunlight, and Poe, under night's
starry cover, roamed through skyey aisles in the service of the Muse
and explored "Al Araaf," the abode of those volcanic souls that rush
in fatal haste to an earthly heaven, for which they recklessly
exchange the heaven of the spirit that might have achieved
immortality.

A severe illness resulted in the disclosure of the identity of the
young soldier, and a message was sent to Mr. Allan, who effected his
discharge and helped secure for him an appointment to West Point. On
his way to the Academy he stopped in Baltimore and arranged for the
publication of a new volume, to contain "Al Araaf," a revised version
of "Tamerlane," and some short poems.