Classic Poem

SPRING'S glow and glamour over Baltimore
Above the green God's acre where he lies,
The sunlight, amber as some fabled ore,
And the ethereal blue of vernal skies,
He who so long since solved the great surmise,
And haply now tunes an immortal lyre
(He who could tune a mortal lyre so well)
With the rapt Israfel,
And the celestial choir.

As white as snow the marble of his tomb
Against the climbing ivy on the wall;
No cypress bough, with its unhallowed gloom,
Here flings its sombre shade funereal;
Even the church-tower, turreted and tall,
Speaks not of dolor, and the slender spines
Of arbor-vitae tell of life, not death,
The life that quickeneth
His immemorial lines.

Yet he was phantom-haunted; eldritch things
Peopled the silent chambers of his brain;
Forevermore the winnow of dark wings
Beat round about him, as when autumn rain
Is hurtled by wild gusts against the pane.

Weird wraiths companioned him, but none the less,
Amid the forms of ghoul and ghost and gnome,
Figures were wont to roam
Of light and loveliness.

His was the master's magic; every chord
He touched gave forth a throb of melody;
No music welled whereof he was not lord,
Whether he sang some city by the sea,
Or some strange palace built in Faëry;
He wove the spell of immaterial chimes
Into his fabric; e'en the midnight bird
An unforgotten word
Breathed through his charmèd rhymes.

He walked with shadows, and yet who shall say
We are not all as shadows, we who fare
Toward one dim bourn along life's fateful way,
Sharing the griefs and joys once his to share
Who passed erewhile to that fair Otherwhere
Beyond the poignancy of bliss or woe!
There hangs the immitigable pathos of dead years,
High hopes bedewed with tears,
About the grave of Poe.