(This tale was published in the Southern Literary Messenger and contains the complete
      verses of the beautiful poem to the Mother of God, including the first four lines
      which are often omitted. Although this short poem is one of the most glorious
      tributes ever uttered to the Madonna, Rev. Rufus Griswold, leading litterateur of
      Poe's age, omitted it from his collection of Christian Ballads.-Ed.)
    
      WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular
     affection I regarded my friend Morella.
     Thrown by accident into her society many
     years ago, my soul from our first meeting,
     burned with fires it had never before
     known; but the fires were not of Eros, and
     bitter and tormenting to my spirit was the
     gradual conviction that I could in no
     manner define their unusual meaning or
     regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met;
     and fate bound us together at the altar; and
     I never spoke of passion nor thought of
     love. She, however, shunned society, and,
     attaching herself to me alone rendered me
     happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a
     happiness to dream.
      Morella's erudition was profound. As I
     hope to live, her talents were of no
     common order, her powers of mind were
     gigantic. I felt this and in many matters,
     became her 'pupil' I soon, however, found
     that, perhaps on account of her Presburg
     education, she placed before me a number
     of those
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    mystical writings which are usually
    considered the mere dross of the early
    German literature. These, for what reason I
    could not imagine, were her favourite and
    constant study-and that in process of time
    they became my own, should be attributed
    to the simple but effectual influence of
    habit and example.
      In all this, if I err not, my reason had
     little to do. My convictions, or I forget
     myself, were in no manner acted upon by
     the ideal, nor was any tincture of the
     mysticism which I read to be discovered,
     unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my
     deeds or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this,
     I abandoned myself implicitly to the
     guidance of my wife, and entered with an
     unranching heart into the intricacies of her
     studies. And then-then, when poring over
     forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit
     enkindling within mewould Morella place
     her cold band upon my own, and rake up
     from the ashes of a dead philosophy some
     low, singular