Prologue
Of borrow’d plumes I take the sin,My extracts will applyTo some few silly songs which inThese pages scatter’d lie.
The words are Edgar Allan Poe’s,As any man may see,But what a POE-t wrote in prose,Shall make blank verse for me.
These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while going at random the rounds of the Press. I am naturally anxious that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate at all. * * * * * * In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. E. A. P.
(See Preface to Poe’s Poetical Works.)