Poe

Ah, Poe! a right and curious name
For one whose dismal tones were signs
Of woe and now are words of fame.
But is such standing worth the lines?
I dare not ask. But rather weep
And ponder “quaint and curious lore”
That rouses out of restive sleep
The one who loves through you Lenore.

Ah, Poe! your name is a sad sigh
That slips between the teeth of time
And lingers like an echoing cry
Still haunting hearts with restive rhyme.
But to your searches, we are blind;
And deaf to your songs of Eldorado:
That thirst for peace you could not find
On earth, “in sunshine or in shadow.”

Ah, Poe! unhappy man! What bells
Were tolled for you? What hopeful score?
Alas, we heard the dull, dull knells
Roll down, down the seaside shore.
A sad sound, a melancholic tone,
Whose troubling tolling trudges in
The mist to mourn the buried bones.
What hope? I dare not ask again!

Ah, Poe! in a small thrice-sung song,
You have a hope. For he that calls
His Mother, though the demons throng
About, shall hear the heaven-halls
Resound his cry. For she, who gave
Our God His flesh, though hope be dim
Can give the grace that will now save
The man who wrote for her a hymn.