Comment 2 of 43, added on October 22nd, 2004 at 7:51 AM.

Poe is saying 'I am different from other people, I am special, I am
uniquely contrary in my passions. I don't feel sorry about the things other
people feel sorry about. I don't enjoy the things other people enjoy. No
one else loves the things I love.' He says he has been like that from
childhood. I take the title 'Alone' as referring to that self-image of
uniqueness. Certainly the word has overtones of solitude and loneliness,
but the poem isn't about those meanings. There's no hint in the poem that
Poe regrets being different, or is fearful, or wants to avoid the company
of others. After the first eight lines the poem becomes more unclear and
goes off track for a bit. Unlike some poets, Poe sticks to grammar. In the
grammar of this poem, the climactic line is 'The mystery that binds me
still'. The following lines do little to explain what that mystery is. They
provide a list of superficial, poor, visual images of natural phenomena
'from' which the mystery is said to have been 'drawn'. The only helpful
detail in them is the closing mention of seeing a cloud that looked to him
like a demon, even though it was blue sky weather. Being an instance of
seeing something memorably deathlike in a thing ordinarily regarded as
momentary and of no importance, I read that as an attempt to return the
poem to the track on which it started. As a result, what Poe is saying in
his own way is that his distinction of taste, and his fascination for the
dark side of things, is a mystery to him, but is something he has always
lived with and always will. And he is convinced he is the only person who
is like that.

Darlene from United States