Take his "El Dorado" for example: This poem alludes to a legend that circulated popularly in the nineteenth century. You'll notice again Poe's delight with rime, but certainly there is more to the poem than rime. It becomes philosophically universal by the last stanza which reveals a bit of sage advice that the paradise, for which El Dorado is a metaphor, is found in the search, and one must "ride boldly" in order to reach that paradise.
So much has been made of Poe's drug use that most people associate his addictions too closely with his art. Of course, that happens to many artists. It seems that the artist's life is always more interesting to the casual reader than is his art. That Poe is a dark figure in literature is garnered more from his biography than from his actual writing.
For more on Edgar Allan Poe:
The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
Poe Museum
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
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