Edgar Allan Poe’s Cottage in the Bronx

There are times when H. P. Lovecraft’s poetry comes across as overripe. But when the subject is Edgar Allan Poe, it seems more appropriate.

Above is the cottage in the Bronx where Poe lived with his young wife Virginia Clemm (married at age 13 to the 27-year-old writer) in the Bronx. I remember visiting it with my mother sometime early in the 1960s.

Where Once Poe Walked

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery’s secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

By the way, notice that the initial letters in each line together spell out EDGAR ALLAN POE.