EDGAR ALLAN POE TO NATHANIEL P. WILLIS — APRIL 20, 1849
My dear Willis: —
The poem which I enclose, and which I am so vain as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It pays well as times go — but unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses accompanying this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to light in the Home Journal? If you can oblige me so far as to copy them, I do not think it will be necessary to say “From the “ that would be too bad; — and, perhaps, “From a late — paper,” would do.
I have not forgotten how a “good word in season” from you made “The Raven,” and made “Ulalume,” (which, by-the-way, people have done me the honor of attributing to you) — therefore I would ask you (if I dared,) to say something of these lines — if they please you.
Truly yours ever,
Edgar A. Poe.