of that ethereal sublimation in which the spirit seems to soar above
the regions of words, but leaves its body, the verse, to be entombed,
without hope of resurrection, in a mass of them. Cowley is generally
instanced as a wonder of precocity. But his early insipidities show
only a capacity for rhyming and for the metrical arrangement of
certain conventional combinations of words, a capacity wholly
dependent on a delicate physical organization, and an unhappy memory.
An early poem is only remarkable when it displays an effort of
_reason, _and the rudest verses in which we can trace some conception
of the ends of poetry, are worth all the miracles of smooth juvenile
versification. A school-boy, one would say, might acquire the regular
see-saw of Pope merely by an association with the motion of the
play-ground tilt.

Mr. Poe's early productions show that he could see through the verse
to the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling that all the
life and grace of the one must depend on and be modulated by the will
of the other. We call them the most remarkable boyish poems that we
have ever read. We know of none that can compare with them for
maturity of purpose, and a nice understanding of the effects of
language and metre. Such pieces are only valuable when they display
what we can only express by the contradictory phrase of _innate
experience. _We copy one of the shorter poems, written when the
author was only fourteen. There is a little dimness in the filling
up, but the grace and symmetry of the outline are such as few poets
ever attain. There is a smack of ambrosia about it.

TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me