The Man Who Called Himself Poe

by Sam Moskowitz

  as one’s voice produces an echo? An echo is a product of a

  certain vacuum. A thought . . .

  Concentration is the key. I have been concentrating. My

  supplies are replenished, and Neptune—visited during my

  venture below—seems rational enough, although he shrinks

  away when I approach him. I have left him below and spent

  the past week here. Concentration, I repeat, is the key to

  my experiment.

  Concentration, by its very nature, is a difficult task: I

  addressed myself to it with no little trepidation. Strive but

  to remain seated quietly with a mind “empty” of all thought,

  and one finds in the space of a very few minutes that the

  errant body is engaged in all manner of distracting move-

  ment—foot tapping, finger twisting, facial grimacing.

  This I managed to overcome after a m atter of many hours

  —my first three days were virtually exhausted in an effort

  to rid myself of nervous agitation and assume the inner and

  outer tranquillity of the Indian fakir. Then came the task of

  “filling” the empty consciousness—filling it completely with

  one intense and concentrated effort of will.

  W hat echo would I bring forth from nothingness? W hat

  companionship would I seek here in my loneliness? W hat

  was the sign or symbol I desired? W hat symbolized to me

  the whole absent world of life and fight?

  DeGrát would laugh me to scorn if he but knew the con-

  cept that I chose. Yet I, the cynical, the jaded, the decadent,

  searched my soul, plumbed my longing, and found that

  2 0 0

  TOE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  which I most desired—a simple sign, a token of all the earth

  removed: a fresh and growing flower, a rose!

  Yes, a simple rose is what I have sought—a rose, torn from

  its living stem, perfumed with the sweet incarnation of life

  itself. Seated here before the window I have dreamed, I

  have mused, I have then concentrated with every fiber of

  my being upon a rose.

  My mind was filled with redness—not the redness of the

  sun upon the sea, or the redness of blood, but the rich and

  radiant redness of the rose. My soul was suffused with the

  scent of a rose: as I brought my faculties to bear exclusively

  upon the image, these walls fell away, the walls of my very

  flesh fell away, and I seemed to merge in the texture, the

  odor, the color, the actual essence of a rose.

  Shall I write of this, the seventh day, when seated at the

  window as the sun emerged from the sea, I felt the com-

  manding of my consciousness? Shall I write of rising, de-

  scending the stairs, opening the iron door at the base of the

  lighthouse and peering out at the billows that swirled at

  my very feet? Shall I write of stooping, of grasping, of

  holding?

  Shall I write that I have indeed descended those iron stairs

  and returned here with my wave-borne trophy— that this

  very day, from waters two hundred miles distant from any

  shore, I have reached down and plucked a fresh rose?

  Jan. 28.

  It has not withered! I keep it before me constantly in a vase

  on this table, and it is a priceless ruby plucked from dreams.

  It is real—as real as the howls of poor Neptune, who senses

  that something odd is afoot. His frantic barking does not

  disturb me; nothing disturbs me, for I am master of a power

  greater than earth or space or time. And I shall use this

  power, now, to bring me the final boon. Here in my tower

  I have become quite the philosopher: I have learned my

  THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  2 0 1

  lesson well and realize that I do not desire wealth, or fame,

  or the trinkets of society. My need is simply this—Compan-

  ionship. And now, with the power that is mine to control, I

  shall have it!

  Soon, quite soon, I shall no longer be alone!

  Jan. 30.

  The storm has returned, but I pay it no heed; nor do I mark

  the howlings of Neptune, although the beast is now liter-

  ally dashing himself against the door of the storeroom. One

  might fancy that his efforts are responsible for the shudder-

  ing of the very lighthouse itself, but no; it is the fury of the

  northern gale. I pay it no heed, as I say, but I fully realize

  that this storm surpasses in extent and intensity anything

  I could imagine as witness to its predecessor.

  Yet it is unimportant; even though the light above me

  flickers and threatens to be extinguished by the sheer veloc-

  ity of wind that seeps through these stout walls; even though

  the ocean sweeps against the foundations with a force that

  makes solid stone seem flimsy as straw; even though the

  sky is a single black roaring mouth that yawns low upon

  the horizon to engulf me.

  These things I sense but dimly, as I address myself to the

  appointed task. I pause now only for food and a brief res-

  pite—and scribble down these words to mark the progress

  of resolution toward an inevitable goal.

  For the past several days I have bent my faculties to my

  will, concentrating utterly and to the uttermost upon the

  summoning of a Companion.

  This Companion will be—I confess it!—a woman; a

  woman far surpassing the limitations of common mortality.

  For she is, and must be fashioned, of dreams and longing,

  of desire and delight beyond the bounds of flesh.

  She is the woman of whom I have always dreamed, the

  One I have sought in vain through what I once presumed,

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  THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  in my ignorance, was the world of reality. It seems to me

  now that I have always known her, that my soul has con-

  tained her presence forever. I can visualize her perfectly—

  I know her hair, each strand more precious than a misers

  gold; the riches of her ivory and alabaster brow, the perfec-

  tion of her face and form are etched forever in my con-

  sciousness. DeGrât would scoff that she is but the figment

  of a dream—but DeGrát did not see the rose.

  The rose—I hesitate to speak of it—has gone. It was the

  rose which I set before me when first I composed myself to

  this new effort of will. I gazed at it intently until vision faded,

  senses stilled, and I lost myself in the attem pt of conjuring

  up my vision of a Companion.

  Hours later, the sound of rising waters from without

  aroused me. I gazed about, my eyes sought the reassurance

  of the rose and rested only upon a foulness. Where the rose

  had risen proudly in its vase, red crest ram pant upon a living

  stem, I now perceived only a noxious, utterly detestable

  strand of ichorous decay. No rose this, but only seaweed;

  rotted, noisome, and putrescent. I flung it away, but for

  long moments I could not banish a wild presentiment—was

  it true that I had deceived myself? Was it a weed, and only

  a weed I plucked from the ocean's breast? Did the force of

  my thought momentarily invest it with the attributes of a


  rose? Would anything I called up from the depths—the

  depths of sea or the depths of consciousness—be truly real?

  The blessed image of the Companion came to soothe these

  fevered speculations, and I knew myself saved. There was

  a rose; perhaps my thought had created it and nourished it

  —only when my entire concentration turned to other things

  did it depart, or resume another shape. And with my Com-

  panion, there will be no need for focusing my faculties

  elsewhere. She, and she alone, will be the recipient of every-

  thing my mind, my heart, my soul possesses. If will, if

  sentiment, if love are needed to preserve her, these things

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  2 0 3

  she shall have in entirety. So there is nothing to fear. Noth-

  ing to fear. . . .

  Once again now I shall lay my pen aside and return to the

  great task—the task of “creation,” if you will—and I shall

  not fail. The fear (I admit it!) of loneliness is enough to

  drive me forward to unimaginable brinks. She, and she

  alone, can save me, shall save me, must save mel I can see

  her now—the golden glitter of her—and my consciousness

  calls to her to rise, to appear before me in radiant reality.

  Somewhere upon these storm-tossed seas she exists, I know

  it—and wherever she may be, my call will come to her and

  she will respond.

  Jan. 31.

  The command came at midnight. Roused from the depths

  of the most profound innermost communion by a thunder-

  clap, I rose as though in the grip of somnambulistic com-

  pulsion and moved down the spiral stairs.

  The lantern I bore trembled in my hand; its light wavered

  in the wind, and the very iron treads beneath my feet shook

  with the furious force of the storm. The booming of the

  waves as they struck the lighthouse walls seemed to place

  me within the center of a maelstrom of ear-shattering

  sound, yet over the demoniacal din I could detect the fren-

  zied howls of poor Neptune as I passed the door behind

  which he was confined. The door shook with the combined

  force of the wind and of his still desperate efforts to free

  himself—but I hastened on my way, descending to the iron

  door at the base of the lighthouse.

  To open it required the use of both hands, and I set the

  lantern down at one side. To open it, moreover, required

  the summoning of a resolution I scarcely possessed—for be-

  yond that door was the force and fury of the wildest storm

  that ever shrieked across these seething seas. A sudden

  2 0 4

  t h e m a n w h o c a l l e d HIMSELF POE

  wave might dash me from the doorway, or, conversely,

  enter and inundate the lighthouse itself.

  But consciousness prevailed; consciousness drove me for־

  ward.

  I knew, I thrilled to the certainty that she was without

  the iron portal—I unbolted the door with the urgency of

  one who rushes into the arms of his beloved.

  The door swung open—blew open—roared open—and the

  storm burst upon me; a ravening monster of black-mouthed

  waves capped with white fangs. The sea and sky surged

  forward as if to attack, and I stood enveloped in chaos. A

  flash of lightning revealed the immensity of utter night־

  mare.

  I saw it not, for the same flash illumined the form, the

  lineaments of she whom I sought.

  Lightning and lantern were unneeeded—her golden glory

  outshone all as she stood there, pale and trembling, a god־

  dess arisen from the depths of the sea!

  Hallucination, vision, apparition? My trembling fingers

  sought, and found, their answer. Her flesh was real—cold

  as the icy waters from whence she came, but palpable and

  permanent. I thought of the storm, of doomed ships and

  drowning men, of a girl cast upon the waters and struggling

  toward the succor of the lighthouse beacon. I thought of a

  thousand explanations, a thousand miracles, a thousand rid־

  dies or reasons beyond rationality. Yet only one thing m at־

  tered—my Companion was here, and I had but to step

  forward and take her in my arms.

  No word was spoken, nor could one be heard in all that

  inferno. No word was needed, for she smiled. Pale lips

  parted as I held out my arms, and she moved closer. Pale lips

  parted—and I saw the pointed teeth, set in rows like those

  of a shark. Her eyes, fishlike and staring, swam closer. As I

  recoiled, her arms came up to cling, and they were cold as

  the waters beneath, cold as the storm, cold as death.

  In one monstrous moment I knew, knew with uttermost

  THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  2 0 5

  certainty, that the power of my will had indeed summoned,

  the call of my consciousness had been answered. But the

  answer came not from the living, for nothing lived in this

  storm. I had sent my will out over the waters, but the will

  penetrates all dimensions, and my answer had come from

  below the waters. She was from below, where the drowned

  dead lie dreaming, and I had awakened her and clothed

  her with a horrid life. A life that thirsted, and must

  drink. . . .

  I think I shrieked, then, but I heard no sound. Certainly,

  I did not hear the howls from Neptune as the beast, burst

  from his prison, bounded down the stairs and flung himself

  upon the creature.

  His furry form bore her back and obscured my vision; in

  an instant she was falling backward, away, into the sea that

  spawned her. Then, and only then, did I catch a glimpse

  of the final moment of animation in that which my con-

  sciousness had summoned. Lightning seared the sight in-

  exorably upon my soul—the sight of the ultimate blasphemy

  I had created in my pride. The rose had wilted. . . .

  The rose had wilted and become seaweed. And now, the

  golden one was gone and in its place was the bloated,

  swollen obscenity of a thing long-drowned and dead, risen

  from the slime and to that slime returning.

  Only a moment, and then the waves overwhelmed it,

  bore it back into the blackness. Only a moment, and the

  door was slammed shut. Only a moment, and I raced up

  the iron stairs, Neptune yammering at my heels. Only a

  moment, and I reached the safety of this sanctuary.

  Safety? There is no safety in the universe for me, no

  safety in a consciousness that could create such horror. And

  there is no safety here—the wrath of the waves increases

  with every moment, the anger of the sea and its creatures

  rises to an inevitable crescendo.

  Mad or sane, it does not matter, for the end is the same

  2 0 6

  THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  in either case. I know now that the lighthouse will shatter

  and fall. I am already shattered, and must fall with it.

  There is time only to gather these notes, strap them se-

  curely in a cylinder and attach it to Neptune’s collar. It

  may be that he can swim, or cling to a fragment of debri
s.

  It may be that a ship, passing by this toppling beacon, may

  stay and search the waters for a sign—and thus find and

  rescue the gallant beast.

  That ship shall not find me. I go with the lighthouse and

  go willingly, down to the dark depths. Perhaps—is it but

  perverted poetry?—I shall join my Companion there for-

  ever. Perhaps . . .

  The lighthouse is trembling. The beacon flickers above

  my head and I hear the rush of waters in their final

  onslaught. There is—yes—a wave, bearing down upon me.

  It is higher than the tower, it blots out the sky itself, every־

  thing. . . .

  THE ATLANTIS

  Scholars c o n ce d e th at there m ay very w e ll ex ist a num ber o f E d g

  A llan P oe item s p u b lish e d anon ym ously or under a p seu d on ym in fo

  g o tte n and ob scu re papers or p eriod icals. N e w ad dition s to th e w or

  o f P o e are gen era lly bits and p ieces o f literary criticism or incons

  q u en tia l p o e tic d o g g ere l th at are finally v a lid a ted as b e in g from t

  p en .

  A m on g th e m o st in terestin g o f th e p ossib ilities th at scholars ha'׳

  rop ed off for perusal is a seven ty-th ou san d -w ord U to p ia titled “T 1

  A tlan tis״ w h ich ap p eared in a m on th ly p eriod ical, The American M

  seum of Science, Literature and the Arts, p u b lish ed in Baltim ore,

  th e issues o f S ep tem b er 1 8 3 8 to June 1 8 3 9 in clu sive. T h e fu ll title

  th e p ie c e is “T h e A tlantis. A Southern W orld ,—or a W o n d erfu l C o

  tin en t,—d iscovered in th e great Southern O cean , and su p p o sed to 1

  th e A tlantis o f Plato, or th e Terra A ustralis In co g n ita o f D r. Sw i

  during a v o y a g e co n d u cted b y A lon zo P in zon , C om m ander o f tl

  A m erican M etal Ship A strea.״

  D e sp ite its len g th , th e w ork w as n ever co m p leted , probably b

  cause the m a g a z in e cea sed p u b lica tio n w ith th e June 1 8 3 9 num b(

  Or co n ce iv a b ly it w as a ctu ally in ten d e d to b e a p erm an ent feature,

  b e u sed as a v e h ic le for p rom u lgatin g the author's v ie w s on scienc

  p h ilo so p h y , p olitics, custom s, religion , cu lts, and w h a tev e r else car

  in to his m in d.

  C hapter 12 o f Arthur H o b so n Q uinn's Edgar Allan Poe is devot<

  to item iz in g th e intern al e v id e n c e th a t prom pts scholars to b e lie