Edgar Allan
Poe
(1809
-
1849)
Born
in
Boston,
Massachusetts,
USA.
Studied
at
the
University
of
Virginia,
but
soon
left
it,
worked
as a
clerk,
newspaper
writer.
Later
was
enlisted
in
the
US
Army
as
private.
He
wrote
Tamurlane
and
Other
Poems
(1827),
Politian (1835),
The
Narrative
of
Arthur
Gordon
Pym
of
Nantucket (1838),
Tales
of
the
Grotesque
and
Arabesque
(1840),
The
Balloon-Hoax
(1844),The
Philosophy
of
Composition
(1846),
Eureka:
A
Prose
Poem (1848),The
Poetic
Principle
(1848),The
Light-House
(1849).
What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.All in the Wrong.This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favourite resort of the marsh- hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea-coast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burdening the air with its fragrance.
