ArtMagick Illustrated Poetry Collection
Edwin Percy Habberton Lulham
Edgar Allen Poe
Year written: 1913
From 'The Other Side of Silence'
The night was wild and shaken with winter storm,
And fierce witch-winds rode screaming down the sky,
And ominous blown night-birds cried without
The shaken lattice of thine earliest home,
That hour thy mother bore thee. And these things
Reached, through her fearful thoughts, thy waking mind.
And, as thy soul was given thee, there rushed in
With it, wild turbulent spirits of the storm,
And homeless wistful things that haunt the night ;
So, at the ashen dawn, thine own first cries
Came mingled with the voices of all these,
And they were still thy soul-mates to the end,
Singing or raging through thy storms and songs.
So I but dream ; yet better so than stain
Thy memory as envious lips have done,
As narrow brains and bitter hearts still do,
Begrudging that thy clouded fame should rise
Free'd from the follies that beset and doomed
Thy hapless days, and brought thy soul's true song,
Marred and unended, to its earthly close.
Hail ! brother-spirit of all lonely men
Who brood at midnight o'er their dying fires,
And nurse the memories of old loves and days,
Daring to whisper their wild hopes, and wait
Time's answer. Hear thy fellow-children call,
And, from thy kingdom by an eternal sea,
Listen and know our love, our thankfulness
For that sweet lingering music of thy lyre.
Whether thou singest yet, with loftier strain
Out-singing Israfel, or thy pale lips
Have quaffed a kind nepenthe -- know our love !
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