On May 1, 1827, allegedly in Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe wrote the following poem in the album of Octavia Walton: When wit, and wine, and friends have metAnd laughter crowns the festive hourIn vain I struggle to forgetStill does my heart confess thy powerAnd fondly turn to thee!But Octavia, do not strive to robMy heart of all that soothes its painThe mournful hope that every throbWill make it break for thee!1We have no reason to doubt that the young lady appreciated these verses. What we do not know is whether the equally young writer was sincere in the sentiment expressed, or if the lady addressed was aware of the origin of these lines. Indeed, Poe did not actually compose the verses but merely adapted for Miss Octavia two stanzas extracted from another poem, titled “Song to Fanny,” published in 1821 in the London New Monthly Magazine: Song.—To Fanny.When morning through my lattice beams,And twittering birds my slumbers break,Then, Fanny, I recall my dreams,Although they bid my bosom ache,For still I dream of thee.FIGS. 1 AND 2The Baltimore sheet music with the lyrics used by Poe in the album of Octavia Walton.When wit, and wine, and friends are met,And laughter crowns the festive hour,In vain I struggle to forget;Still does my heart confess thy power,And fondly turn to thee.When night is near, and friends are far,And, through the tree that shades my cotI gaze upon the evening star,How do I mourn my lonely lot,And, Fanny, sigh for thee!I know my love is hopeless—vain,But, Fanny, do not strive to robMy heart of all that soothes its pain—The mournful hope, that every throbWill make it break for thee!H.2This poem is only the final part of a long disquisition on dancing, somewhat cryptically signed only as “H.,” which the Dutch researcher Ton Farfiane has identified the poet Horace Smith.3 Therefore, in 1827, Edgar Allan Poe paid homage to Miss Octavia Walton with a poem composed by someone else and directed at someone else. On the other hand, it is true that he did not sign the two stanzas. Perhaps Miss Octavia already knew or Poe told her about the original. Considering their age at the time (eighteen for Poe, seventeen for Octavia), their world and the high-society parties with popular music played on the piano, I think it is quite probable that they both knew the poem in the form of a song actively in circulation during those years. We are fortunate to have the sheet music; it was printed in Baltimore in 1826. The title is “When morning throu’ my lattice beams, A Favorite Song,” composed and dedicated to Miss A. E. Hall; the composer is T. V. Wiesenthal; and the lyrics are nearly the same ones of “Song.—To Fanny.” (instead of “Fanny” here we have “Anna”).4All of this context was lost or forgotten by the succeeding generations that inherited Octavia's album, so much so that in 1941 Thomas Ollive Mabbott, knowing only that “the poem has always been known as Edgar Poe's by the owners of the album,”5 inserted it in the introduction of his facsimile reprint of Tamerlane and Other Poems with the convenient title “To Octavia.”6 Today we must remove “To Octavia” from the canon; we have lost a “Poe” poem but we can listen to a song that Poe knew and listened to in his youth.