Elizabeth it is in vain you say “Love not”—thou sayest it in so sweet a way: In vain those words from thee or L. E. L. Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well: Ah! if that language from thy heart arise, Breathe it less gently forth—and veil thine eyes. Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried To cure his love—was cured of all beside— His folly—pride—and passion—for he died.
Where this text comes from
First published in Patterson Evening News (Patterson, NJ) and New York Herald, both 9 May 1903, reporting the Henkels sale of the manuscript. This date is uncertain. Written about 1829 in the album of Poe's cousin Elizabeth Rebecca Herring and unpublished in his lifetime.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only the first two lines, and the Anderson catalogue of 19 May 1905, which prints the whole poem, still describes it as unpublished.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. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/edgar-allan-poe_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (7)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L9.
Cite this poem
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).
“An Acrostic.” First published in Patterson Evening News (Patterson, NJ) and New York Herald, both 9 May 1903, reporting the Henkels sale of the manuscript.
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/edgar-allan-poe/an-acrostic/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
More by Edgar Allan Poe