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from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, May, 1853.
In an article entitled "Spiritual Manifestations," listing instances where dead authors were alleged to have made contact via spiritualist mediums, the author notes a claimed contact with the late Mr. Poe, who obliges with a visionary message and even a new poem!
We lament to say that Edgar A. Poe, the author of "The Raven," is still spirituously addicted; and that his shade composes under the influence of intoxication. Mrs. Lydia Tenney, of Georgetown, Massachusetts, a noted medium--by the way, it is worth remarking that a person of the name of Tenney signed a certificate of the truth of the Fox demonstrations [ed. note: the Fox sisters invented spiritualist contact with the dead]--lately communicated to a magnetic circle a message and poem from the deceased bard. It is not easy to decide whether they flavour most of peach-brandy or of ether.
"Listen to me, and I will tell you of beautiful things--of thoughts both wild and tender--both soothing and tumultuous, which dwell in a human heart. A question which has moved the minds of millions is, What is the end and aim of imagination?--for what was it implanted in the human organisation? What was my own? but a vortex rushing within itself, upon whose brink I could seem to stand and see what was being swallowed and reproduced--thorns, jagged rocks, beautiful flowers--all in the whirl of this ceaseless current merged."
"O, the dark, the awful chasm!
O, the fearful spirit spasm!
Wrought by unresisted passion
In my heart.
Fancies joyous, but alluring;
Love pure, but unenduring,
From time to time securing
Each a part.
Then embraced by seraph bands--
Drawn by tender loving hands--
From those treacherous, hateful sands
Of despair.
How my soul was waked to gladness,
And cast off the deadening sadness,
And the soul-devouring madness
Writhing there!
May we be caught up and suspended from the ceiling....