Before leaving West Point, Poe arranged for the publication of a volume
of poetry, which appeared in New York in 1831. This volume, to which the
students of the academy subscribed liberally in advance, is noteworthy in
several particulars. In a prefatory letter Poe lays down the poetic
principle to which he endeavored to conform his productions. It throws
much light on his poetry by exhibiting the ideal at which he aimed. "A
poem, in my opinion," he says, "is opposed to a work of science by having
for its _immediate_ object pleasure, not truth; to romance, by
having for its object an _indefinite_ instead of a definite
pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance
presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with _in_
definite sensations, to which end music is an _essential_, since the
comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music,
when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea
is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very
definiteness." Music embodied in a golden mist of thought and sentiment--
this is Poe's poetic ideal.

As illustrative of his musical rhythm, the following lines from _Al
Aaraaf_ may be given:--

"Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night