POE CENTENARY EXERCISES. 1/ 



breathed it forth. But his, too, is praise. Poe made of his 

 fate his victory and, for the victim of life, thai is the master- 

 stroke. We "' bid fair peace be to his sable shroud." 



It is lit now, though late, to bring the laurel to him who 

 first sent the dark green leaf across the sea to Tennyson and 

 Mrs. Browning, and among ourselves brought it to Haw- 

 thorne and Lowell in their obscure years. And he has more 

 to grace his memory — that which all men value, the kindly 

 recollection of those who were most nigh him. Poe won the 

 laurel and the marble; hut the mortal flower upon his grave i- 

 his — thai he endeared himself to his friends. lie had many 

 friends. lie had the best. There was no truer gentleman 

 then alive than Kennedy, who to the honor of Baltimore be- 

 friended his early manhood. There was no more kindly col- 

 league than \\'illi>. who gave him his hand in New York and 

 never drew it away. There were no warmer comrades for 

 mates in life than Thomas, Halleck and Burr. Poe had also 

 that power which is one of the singularities of genius — the 

 power to let the soul shine on all. I lis office-hoy idolized him: 

 children suffered him to play with them; and every wayfarer 

 who touched his hand or had speech of him on his wandering 

 road, seems to have remembered the light of that day forever. 



Sad are some of the thoughts that rise in me on this occasion. 

 I seem to share them with you. dnese traits of fortune and 

 of character to which I have alluded, belong to humanity, and 

 link genius to the understanding hearts of men: hut genius 

 is itself the most revealing force of the soul: its manifesta- 

 tions are revelations of our nature. The genius of Poe was 

 one of the manifold forms of humanity; else it were not 

 genius; hut that man who would speak rightly of him must, 

 in his vision of human nature, have room and marge enough 

 to know that the spirit of life is infinite in its flowering, that 

 the Shepherd of us all has many folds. 



