What does Edgar Allan Poe mean when he says...?

The death of a beautiful woman is beauty betrayed - frozen in time. The loss of something so precious is life changing - as was the loss of Poe's mother when he was a toddler and his teenage wife when he was a young man. One could mourn and ponder this kind of profound event for the rest of his artistic life - as Poe did in his poems and short stories.