Frances Osgood's Connections to Edgar Allan Poe's Couplet

Frances Osgood’s Connections to Edgar Allan Poe’s Couplet and the “Eulalie” Stuart Manuscript

Andrew Barger

*Copyright Andrew Barger. All rights reserved. This essay was originally published in Poe Studies. Please cite: Andrew Barger, “Frances Osgood’s Connections to Edgar Allan Poe’s Couplet and the Stuart Manuscript of ‘Eulalie,’” Poe Studies, 55 (2022): 109-25. Purchase the essay at Project Muse: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/864940

Abstract: General notions regarding Edgar Allan Poe and Frances Sargent Osgood is that the intertextual poetical relationship between them lasted for approximately one year before the infamous letter scandal broke them apart. Antithetical to these notions, it now appears Osgood attempted to renew her relationship with Poe in summer of 1847 by publishing a pseudonymous effusion to him. “To ----- ----- -----,” signed “Anna F. Allan,” called out to Poe to write a new poem. Given no apparent response, the following month another sorrowful and uncharacteristic Osgood poem titled “Zarifa” was published and from it Poe appears to have used a line for his couplet. These discoveries provide new insights into a possible date for the Stuart manuscript of “Eulalie,” demonstrate the manuscript was still in Poe’s possession at this time, and provide--with some confidence--an earliest date for Poe’s couplet.

From the sad solitude in which thou waitest,

Strike thy wild lyre once more!—for me—for me!

“To ----- ----- -----.”

Godey’s Lady’s Book, May 1847

Anna F. Allan

Edgar Allan Poe’s handwritten “Eulalie” manuscript, and his couplet penciled on the back, were bequeathed from the private estate of Robert Leighton Stuart to the New York Public Library in 1892. Stuart, a wealthy New York sugar refiner who retired in 1872, devoted his last decade to “augmenting and enriching his library.” The manuscript was found in a loose-leaf autograph album that was part of a collection of 50 such albums. It went undiscovered by the NYPL for 22 years. Announcement of the finding was published in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library in December 1914. This marked the first time an actual manuscript of “Eulalie” was found. Since then the timeframe for when Poe wrote the undated Stuart manuscript, as well as the undated and unpublished couplet penciled on the back (perhaps at a different time), has resulted in supposition among Poe scholars.

Victor Paltsits, former head of the Manuscripts Division (1895-1941) at the NYPL, reported the finding of the Stuart manuscript and the couplet, implying a date of 1845 for both. James Whitty agreed that they were penned when “Eulalie” was first published in The American Review during July 1845. He confessed, however, that the couplet “may date after the death of Poe’s wife in 1847.” (Whitty, Complete Poems, 2nd Ed, 1917) Killis Campbell raised the possibility that the Stuart manuscript dated “soon after the death of the poet’s wife” on January 30, 1847, though he provided no estimate as to the timeframe of the couplet sketched on the back. (Campbell, Poems, 1917) Thomas Mabbott believed the couplet was penned “soon after the funeral” of Virginia Poe on February 2, 1847, given its lost love subject matter. (Mabbott, Complete Poems, 2000) In Mabbott’s view this was after Poe had written “Eulalie” on the other side, which he dated to 1846 without evidence. To complicate matters further, a recent article was silent as the couplet’s date, while giving an early estimation for the date of the Stuart manuscript as between 1843 and 1845.

Newly discovered evidence leads to a pair of Frances Osgood poems that provide a possible date for both the couplet and the Stuart manuscript. Poe and Osgood first met in March 1845 when N. P. Willis introduced them at the Astor Hotel. This was after Poe sent her a copy of “The Raven” and requested an introduction. The intertextual relationship soon blossomed between the poets with numerous works published in Graham’s Magazine (“Graham’s”) and the Broadway Journal (“BJ”), where Poe was co-editor. After numerous poetic exchanges that began in March 1845, Osgood’s revealing short story “Ida Grey” appeared in the August 1845 issue of Graham’s under her own name. It gave a loose retelling of their meeting and furtive relationship to date. Poe called “‘Ida Grey’ a tale of passion, exceedingly well written.” The story contained a long poem, “To —,” as if responding to Poe’s last poem to her with the same title. As for the title “Ida Grey,” Poe likely used the pen name Edward S. T. Grey in lost missives to Osgood, just as he would do in 1848 when writing Sarah Helen Whitman. Osgood was married, and using Edward S. T. Grey would have been a way to hide his identity. Though unknown to the public, Osgood was assuming Poe’s pseudonymous last name in “Ida Grey.” Their intertextual relationship would last the rest of the year.

In early 1846, Poe’s valentine acrostic that spelled Osgood’s full name (though her middle name was spelled incorrectly) was read at Anne Lynch’s Valentine’s Day soirée. Unlike Poe, Osgood was in attendance. The poem was first published in the Evening Mirror on February 21, 1846 and a month later so was his “Review of ‘A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England’ and ‘Poems,’” where he offered literary criticism in Godey’s Lady’s Book regarding Osgood’s early poetry collections. Around this time the infamous letter scandal occurred among Poe, Osgood and Elizabeth Ellet. Poe and his family left New York City and ultimately settled in Fordham. Meanwhile, Osgood published “Ida’s Farewell,” marking the end of their intertextual relationship in March 1846, as if bookending what she began with her “Ida Grey” poem and at that time signaling the death of her pseudonym Ida Grey. While Poe’s “Frances S. Osgood” was included in his Literati sketches for September of 1846, Poe wrote it much earlier, “near the close of his residence” in New York City, per Osgood. Little to no communication is believed to have taken place between the poets during the last half of 1846 and 1847, Poe’s “most immemorial year.”

Contrary to popular notions, however, Osgood apparently sought to rekindle her relationship with Poe in May of 1847 when she published “To ----- ----- -----,” a heartfelt and sympathetic poem with a blank three word ascription designed to pique readers’ interests. It was signed under the revealing pseudonym “Anna F. Allan.” The first letter of the middle name presumably stood for “Frances” or “Fanny,” Osgood’s nickname. The pseudonym was sure to get Poe’s attention, especially in the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book, a magazine where Osgood frequently published and where Poe had published his mostly complimentary “Frances S. Osgood” Literati sketch in September 1846. One can imagine the stir this caused with Virgina Poe having died only four months earlier. This appears to be the first time she publicly used Poe’s surname for her own pseudonym, too. She did so in a much bolder way than when she incorporated the surname of “Edward S. T. Grey” in the title of her short story “Ida Grey,” which included a female protagonist by the same name.

To ----- ----- -----.

Since thou art lost to me on earth forever—

Since never more my lips may breathe thy name—

Since ‘tis thy will that I not e’er endeavor

To learn where beats and burns that heart of flame—

Ah! But one boon be mine—the first, the latest,

That my shy heart could ever ask of thee—

From the sad solitude in which thou waitest,

Strike thy wild lyre once more!—for me—for me!

Let the dear echo of that music bring me

News of thy soul;—proud lark, from out thy cloud

Sweep the rare chords—none sweep so well—and sing me,

In pitying tones, the love so oft avowed!

By the pure fervor of the faith I gave thee—

By the wrecked hopes, that nothing can restore—

By the lost heart, that would have died to save thee—

Speak to my soul from thine once more—once more!

Once more!—one fond, low murmur ere I die, love!

Ere the frail form beloved by thee is dust!

The world will hear and praise the strain;—but I, love—

Only to my heart will it whisper—“Trust!”

The poem is written in Osgood’s trademark flowing style and uses turns of phrase Osgood employed in other poems. The first quatrain laments that Poe is lost to her “forever,” in similar fashion to the first quoted line “We part forever!” in “Ida’s Farewell.” As Osgood makes clear, it was Poe’s desire for her to not seek out where he was living and where “beats and burns” his “heart of flame.” This is in line with Poe’s desires at the time of their breakup. A letter by Osgood’s friend, Mary Hewitt, asked where Poe was living after moving out of NYC and related that she and Osgood often talked about him and wondered where Poe had moved with his family. Poe later confessed to Sarah Helen Whitman that he “found it impossible to forgive Mrs O.” for her part in the letter scandal.

Antithetic parallelism is at the forefront in the following two quatrains, making clear that although they were physically apart, the author would love for Poe to strike his “wild lyre once more” for her, bringing news of his “soul.” Poe had written a number of poems to Osgood in the past; the most recent of which was “A Valentine” in February 1846. If Poe were to strike his wild lyre, at a minimum, she believed it would bring her news of his “soul.” These quatrains are similar in tone and structure to Osgood’s elegiac tribute to Poe, “The Hand That Swept the Sounding Lyre,” in her final collection of poetry and that is believed to pay homage to Poe. The similarities are evident just from the title. The author tells Poe, in “To ----- ----- -----,” to “sing” again for her, i.e. write a new poem. She is clearly not seeking a review of her poetry collections as Poe had done previously in his “Review of Poems by Frances S. Osgood” and in his Literati sketchpiece. “None sweep so well” in the third quatrain is a play on Poe’s “None sing so wildly well,” in “Israfel.” The common refrain of “once more” is often repeated, a takeoff on Poe’s famous refrain “nevermore.”

Given no apparent response, Osgood appears to have kept trying to get Poe’s attention the following month with another heartfelt poem she likely wrote in early June of 1847 and which was published that same month, but dated in the July issue of the Union Magazine. That Edgar Allan Poe’s sorrowful couplet, which Mabbott deemed a “tiny gem,” (Mabbott, Complete Poems, 396) has any nexus to the airy poet Frances Osgood is surprising, yet understandable when “Zarifa,” one of her most despairing poems, is considered. In “Zarifa” Osgood brings to light an unnamed man’s “strange neglect,” perhaps in reference to Poe’s lack of communication over the course of the past year. Osgood laments that “with his love, his friendship fled.”

[Deep in Earth]

Deep in earth my love is lying

And I must weep alone.

Poe’s Purloined Line

To understand how “Zarifa” was an unusual effusion for Frances Sargent Osgood, one must consider her graceful and romantic literary persona to her large readership of “twice twenty thousand eyes” that viewed her poems monthly. They longed for more of her airy works in the literary magazines of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Yet the July 1847 issue of the Union Magazine contained an uncharacteristic Osgood poem; different from the coquettish, whimsical pieces that had become her literary motif. The poem was one of her most sorrowful efforts and a poetic cry for sympathy. The subtitle relates that it was “suggested by a Spanish story,” it called out to an unnamed man who wantonly grieved “[a] heart that loved him so!” The eleventh quatrain contains the phrase “And I must weep alone” (emphasis added below) that is the second line in Poe’s couplet. In the line he leaves personal interpretation to the reader, any one of which reflects Poe’s signature lost-love mythos.

Zarifa

Suggested by a Spanish Story

I cannot keep the tears back!

The tears, that should not flow

For one, who wantonly could grieve

A heart that loved him so!

I cannot keep the tears back;

The bitter, bitter tears,

For the sweet memories of the past,

The fond, fond love of years!

For many days I doubted,

Would God it still were so!

Would God there were a gleam of doubt,

O’er all that now I know!

For many days I doubted;

But when he soothed my grief,

With fond assurances of truth,

Could I deny belief?

It is not that another lures

His loyal love from me:—

Though well I know she’s lovelier far,

Than ever I could be!

And well I know the little grace

That won his passion brief,

Is worn from my frail form and face,

By sickness and by grief!

No thought like this could make them flow,

These bitter, bitter tears,

O’er the dear memories of the past,

The fond, fond love of years.

Not this—though it has blighted,

The one sweet hope I knew,

That if a world beside were false,

His generous heart was true.

It is the unexplained distrust,

The studied, strange neglect;

Ah! Only for a lover lost,

My pride these tears had checked!

But with his love, his friendship fled,

And that I scarce can bear,

For I would be a friend to him,

Through every joy and care.

And oh! I pine to see his face,

And hear his gentle tone;

And he is near—yet comes not here,—

And I must weep alone.

I would not blame him by a look;

For if I e’vr had met

A more heroic heart than his,

I also might forget!

But I cannot keep the tears back,

The bitter, bitter tears,

O’er all the memories of the past,

The fond, fond love of years.

I cannot keep the tears back,

And yet they should not flow

For one, who wantonly could wound

A heart that loved him so!

Zarifa [zah-REE-fah] derives from the Arabic and means a graceful little girl. In “Zarifa,” Osgood’s lonely and depressed state of mind is clear. Her resulting tears are prominently featured, too. Osgood tells of her “frail form,” the identical phrase she used a month earlier in “To ----- ----- -----;” a presumed reference to the effects of tuberculosis from which she was suffering and would ultimately die in May of 1850. She disclosed to Sarah Helen Whitman, “I have a terrible racking cough which is killing me by inches and there are not many inches left now.” The unnamed man has wantonly grieved her, which aligns with “To ----- ----- -----” and the man’s desire that the author not seek out where he is living. “Fond assurances of truth” are highlighted in the fourth quatrain and offered by the man who soothed her grief, which is in line to the “Truth” assured in the final line of “To ----- ----- -----.”

Since the final line in Poe’s undated and unpublished couplet has been uncovered in Osgood’s “Zarifa,” it raises questions as to whether Poe thought of the exact words himself, read them in another work, or adapted them from Osgood. Certainly, the accomplished Poe might have thought of the phrase “[a]nd I must weep alone.” Disparate prior works also used the phrase, “weep alone,” from which Poe might have extrapolated the line. It is no stretch to assume he was also reading Osgood’s works during summer 1847. Hiram Fuller admitted, perhaps with untoward intent, that “[i]n scanning the verses of Mrs. Osgood he is quite at home.” It seems likely that since the exact phrase appeared in a New York magazine with a large circulation to which Poe had ready access and was contained in a poem by Osgood who called out to him the prior month in a very attention-grabbing way, that he purloined Osgood’s line.

In “Zarifa” Osgood calls for sympathy in numerous ways, primarily directed to an unnamed man who has wantonly grieved her heart and will not visit her, though nearby. After Osgood had called out to Poe to “sing” and “speak to her soul” and to strike his “wild lyre” and “sweep the rare chords none sweep so well” for her once again in “To ----- ----- -----,” she puzzled at his “strange neglect” in “Zarifa.” The former poem is directed to Poe and seeks another poem from him, contains similar language and turns of phrase as “Zarifa.” In the latter poem Osgood called out to the unnamed man to visit her as she pined “to see his face.” In June 1847, it was perhaps over a year since she had seen Poe. The man was near but did not visit her. A week before “Zarifa” was published, Poe visited Manhattan and made the papers. On June 7, 1847, Poe entered the Evening Mirror office at 105 Nassau Street with his attorney, Enoch L. Fancher, in tow. Fancher had argued Poe’s case in his successful libel suit against Hiram Fuller and Augustus Clason, Jr., owners of the paper. Poe wore a new suit of clothes, was reported to be intoxicated, and perhaps relished his legal victory while there. When Poe and Fancher left, Fuller wasted no time publishing a derogatory account of the visit in the paper that very day. Osgood likely saw this public missive and knew Poe had been only a few blocks from her apartment at 94 Merchants Exchange, between Ann and Beekman Streets. A week after Poe’s visit to the city, Osgood published “Zarifa” with its heartfelt lines: “And he is near—yet comes not here,—And I must weep alone.”

It is also important to consider numerous similarities between “Zarifa” and a similar Osgood poem to Poe in which she used an acrostic to spell his name; which, like the couplet, was unpublished. In Osgood’s “To -----,” with only full name dashes for the difference in the title from “To ----- ----- -----,” Poe’s full name is spelled out starting with the first letter of the last word in the line below an epigram Osgood slightly modified from the Matthew Prior original, then the first letter of the second to last word of the second line, etc. In the acrostic Osgood made clear she had fond memories of the past with Poe. “So fondly doth this heart still dwell Upon the Past--our Past!” Now consider these “memories of the past” lines from “Zarifa”: “For the sweet memories of the past, The fond, fond love of years!” as well as “O’er the dear memories of the past, The fond, fond love of years.” With her “love of years” comment, Osgood appears to be exaggerating given popular notions, but not on closer inspection. In July 1847 Osgood had known Poe about 28 months since they were formally introduced. It has also been persuasively argued that the Poe-Osgood relationship (or at least the admiration of each other’s works) existed prior to 1845 given their interrelated works in the popular magazines of the day, starting with Osgood’s “Leonor” published in 1838. At a minimum the poets were reading each other’s works, and perhaps exchanging letters, much prior to their March 1845 introduction. Given the similarities among the themes of fond past memories, Osgood’s self-deprecation, and the courting of another that are present in both “Zarifa” and “To -----,” this is further evidence that “Zarifa” was addressed to Poe.

A Subsequent Osgood Poem Also Affected Poe

Apart from adapting a line from “Zarifa,” another link to Poe is the apparent hurried penciling of his couplet. The line seems to have elicited a personal reaction from Poe similar to his 1849 reaction to Osgood’s “Lines from an Unpublished Drama.” Sarah Helen Whitman related to Mary Hewitt that Poe had “spoken tom [to me] of some lines which were to appear in the Metropolitan for February 1849. He had seen them in ms (at the publisher’s, I think) and believed them to be addressed to himself. With his impressible & impulsive temperament I can see that they must have deeply affected him & have revived remembrances which, for the moment, prevailed over every other feeling.” The same month Poe saw Osgood’s “Lines” at the publishers, he wrote Annie Richmond and revealed, “from this day forth I shun the pestilential society of literary women. They are a heartless, unnatural, venomous, dishonorable set, with no guiding principle but inordinate self-esteem. Mrs. Osgood is the only exception I know.” The beginning of “Lines” continues the theme of Poe’s neglect of Osgood. This time he is chastised for his neglect of her “briefest look,” “gayest word,” “faintest change of cheek,” “softest touch,” “careless smile” and “sigh.” It is unknown the time frame to which Osgood is referring. At a minimum, it is apparent that Poe was reading Osgood’s poems in the summer of 1847 like he had done in years past and would continue to do so for the rest of his life.

In a play on the age-old question of the chicken or the egg, which then came first--the couplet or “Eulalie?” It is possible that Poe hand wrote the Stuart manuscript upon reading “To ----- ----- -----” or that it had been previously written as far back as mid-1843 per a recent article. This would mean the manuscript had been lying around for up to four years. Poe subsequently could have sketched the couplet on the back after reading “Zarifa.” We now know the manuscript, or at least the light blue paper on which it was penciled, was in his possession in mid-June 1847 when “Zarifa” was published. Osgood sought an original poem. It is therefore more reasonable that Poe wrote his couplet first, before “Eulalie,” intending to write an original poem on the other side of the paper. He did not want his pencil marks showing through so he did so using the touch of a light pencil. It can now be assumed the couplet was to be the final two lines in a longer original poem that was perhaps about the death of Virgina Poe, yet to Osgood it would “whisper--“Trust!” He never published his couplet and likely never intended it, or any longer extrapolation, to be published either. The couplet’s impactful tone is also emblematic of Poe’s style. He often wrote poems backwards by starting with the concluding lines. Poe appears to have changed his mind regarding an original poem incorporating Osgood’s line, was too busy, or too ill. Perhaps he simply turned over the page and copied “Eulalie” in his beautiful handwriting, modifying “it” to “her” in the last two lines.

If so, why did Poe select “Eulalie” for a presentation gift? His valentine would make sense, but he had already provided the handwritten manuscript to Osgood as a presentation gift under the title “To ----- ----- -----,” which is identical to Osgood’s pseudonymous effusion. It is apparent Poe selected it because Osgood held a deep affinity for “Eulalie,” one of his brightest poems. She had paid effusive homage to “Eulalie” in “[Low My Lute],” that appeared in the holiday giftbook she edited in December of 1846. In the poem she used the Eulalie refrain half a dozen times. Knowing how Osgood felt about his bright song and the homage she had paid in “[Low, My Lute],” Poe might have thought of a simple solution that would pacify Osgood and rid him of penning a longer original poem. Alternatively, Poe might have written the manuscript during the holidays of 1846 when Osgood’s gift book was published and for some reason failed to send it to Osgood such that it was in his possession when reading “Zarifa.” If so, he would have oppositely turned to the back of the manuscript and used it as a blank sheet to lightly pencil his couplet. This seems like the least likely of the two options given Osgood’s “To ----- ----- -----” the prior month. If the manuscript was already written, Poe only needed to send it at that time and that did not happen. In the old debate, it appears the couplet came first before “Eulalie.”

The Stuart manuscript has no date, subtitle, byline, or autograph. It is also unaddressed. Poe did not address it because the poem already had its title. There is no byline because it was intended, perhaps, for Osgood’s personal album and to be left unpublished. Only the extant “Carter” and “Colton” manuscripts were intended for publication and both contained Poe’s full name byline as a result. There is also the possibility that the Stuart manuscript remained with Poe until his death or was gifted as an autograph to Stuart; the latter of which has been suggested. Yet, if the manuscript was presented as an autograph, certainly Poe would have signed it himself. Instead, Poe’s signature was affixed to the manuscript in different colored paper, perhaps clipped from a letter Osgood had received. Poe was known to leave other presentation works unsigned that were unintended for publication like “To Louisa Hunter,” and the Susan Ingram manuscript of “Ulalume.” Gifted manuscripts were frequently left unsigned to add an air of mystery as to the author. Of course, there was no mystery in this instance. The copied manuscript was not the publication of a new poem that Osgood undoubtedly hoped for, yet she certainly would have relished the gift.

If Osgood did receive the Stuart manuscript, she certainly cherished it as evidenced by her second homage to the poem, “A Billet-Doux” in 1849. It overtly employed the “Eulalie” refrain 20 times. The “Love-Letter” would later be titled “Eulalie” in her Poems of 1850. Campbell believed that “A Billet-Doux,” like “Low, My Lute – Breathe Low,” were both written to Poe. (Campbell, Poems, 1917) Just as in “To ----- ----- -----,” where Osgood sought news of his “soul,” in the first line she questioned whether Poe’s “soul” was “at home.” She was more demanding in “Lines” when she made clear “I will have all--Your proudest, purest, noblest, loftiest love--Your perfect trust--your soul of soul--or nothing!”

A reasonable explanation can now be given for the circuitous path of the “Eulalie” manuscript from Poe to Stuart. It appears the Stuart manuscript resided in either the estate of Poe or, more likely, Osgood. Rufus Griswold was appointed the literary executor for both and would have taken possession of the manuscript. Stuart hired a former Harvard librarian by the name of Dr. Joseph Green Cogswell, who was at least Griswold’s acquaintance, to aid in the building of his library. Cogswell, described as America’s “first scholarly librarian,” was a literary advisor to Stuart who also collected many of the works in the renowned Astor library. Cogswell served on a committee of distinguished men that arranged for the public respects given at the James Fenimore Cooper Memorial, which took place on September 25, 1851 at New York City Hall. He also served the same function on March 25, 1852 for the establishment of the Cooper monument. On both occasions Griswold presided as co-secretary along with Fitz-Greene Halleck. Being a librarian, Cogswell would have certainly paid interest to the well-known collection of letters and manuscripts within Griswold’s possession. Cogswell might have acquired the Stuart manuscript directly from Griswold after Osgood died in May of 1850, who sought to make quick money by selling off an unsigned, unaddressed, and undated manuscript written in the exquisite hand of Edgar Allan Poe. Note that Poe’s valentine manuscript for Osgood apparently stayed within the Griswold estate and was ultimately donated to Harvard College. Given the historical significance of it, it is more reasonable that Griswold did not want to part with the valentine manuscript. When Griswold died, portraits of both Osgood and Poe were hanging on his wall.

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