whole before making the attempt to pass final judgment or to measure the intended effect.
SHADOW A PARABLE (1835)
Yea! though I walk through the valley of the Shadow. Psalm of David
[The conclusion of this meditation on death has been universally recognized as one of Poe's masterpieces of blended harmony. Brownell, who considers Shadow only a bit of "elaborate and hollow solemnity," concedes in the ending "a note of real pith and dignity." But to concede pith and dignity at the end is, in the case of Poe, to concede pith and dignity throughout; for the texture of the ending is the texture of the whole, and the form of the ending is only the whole massed and made convergent.]
Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.
The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not
