{
 "id": "edgar-allan-poe/an-acrostic",
 "title": "An Acrostic",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Allan Poe",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-allan-poe",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Patterson Evening News (Patterson, NJ) and New York Herald, both 9 May 1903, reporting the Henkels sale of the manuscript",
  "note": "Written about 1829 in the album of Poe's cousin Elizabeth Rebecca Herring and unpublished in his lifetime. Which printing was the first is not settled: the Henkels sale catalogue of 5 May 1903 gave only the first two lines, and the Anderson catalogue of 19 May 1905, which prints the whole poem, still describes it as unpublished. Its first appearance in a collection of Poe was J. H. Whitty's edition of 1911, as “From an Album”; the title “An Acrostic” was assigned by Killis Campbell in 1917.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.eapoe.org/works/info/pp024.htm"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-allan-poe_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2151",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Acrostic",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elizabeth_(Poe)",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Serenade_(Poe)",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00unkngoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924019520810",
   "https://archive.org/details/jstor-2915307"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 9,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Elizabeth it is in vain you say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Love not”⁠—thou sayest it in so sweet a way:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Breathe it less gently forth⁠—and veil thine eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To cure his love⁠—was cured of all beside⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His folly⁠—pride⁠—and passion⁠—for he died.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}