12 THE BRONX SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



I put it forward timorously as a suggestion, that Poe has 

 followed in this poem, the walk from his home clown the 

 Fordham Landing Road to what is now Sedgwick Avenue, 

 where formerly was a graveyard of some size. Here was the 

 " alley " shaded with great trees — cut down. 1 am sorry to say, 

 when the road was widened — here was the dow r nward path, 

 and the dark tarn, dimly seen, may have been the smooth wide 

 waters of the Harlem seen through the barren trees from the 

 old graveyard. And here at the end of the path were tombs 

 to remind him of the tomb of Virginia, who was buried not 

 far away, behind the Fordham Manor church in the Valen- 

 tines' vault. I like to think that Poe walked this way. and 

 received inspiration for his mystic lines from this spot. The 

 vagaries of an antiquary, you know, must be forgiven. 



Amheim, Ulalume, and Eureka, these are the products of 

 Poe's immemorial year. The last was, according to Poe, a 

 prose-poem; to the uninitiated it was a lecture on the universe, 

 from the proceeds of which the poet hoped to get funds to 

 start his long-dreamt-of magazine. As philosophy it has never 

 been seriously treated by the philosophical world; upon the 

 copv in the Yale library some scornful youth has penciled 

 ' This is the lore of a child." Yet there is enough of the 

 stars about it to hint at the night-communings of the poet 

 with them in his rambles through the Bronx woods. 



And now we enter the last period of his residence at Ford- 

 ham, beginning with the year 1848. The publication of 

 Eureka gave him some money, and he made a short visit to 

 Richmond. The early summer was notable for the composi- 

 tion of The Bells. The first stanzas of the poem, as is well 

 known, were written at the home of Mrs. Shew in the city; 

 the rest, or nineteen-tw enlieths, was probably written at Ford- 

 ham. Since, according to the city directories of 1848 and 

 1849, Mrs. Shew was living at 51 Tenth Street, near Broad- 

 way, the church-hells which annoyed Poe, and led this friend 

 to suggest that instead of annoyance lie should get from them 

 some verses, were the bells of Grace Church, which edifice 



