OUR ISRAFEL. 



In Memory of Edgar Allan Poe. 

 BY EDWIN MARKHAM. 



Feb. 19, 1909. 



I 

 The sad great gifts the austere Muses bring 



In their stern hands to make their poets of 

 Were laid on him that he might darkly sing 



Of Beauty, Death and Love. 



They laid upon him hunger as a dower, 



A hunger for a loveliness more strange 

 Than Earth can give — more wild than any hour 



Of all this chance and change. 



They laid upon him Music's trembling charm. 



The mystery of sound, of shaken air, 

 Whose touch can lift the spirit or alarm — 



Build rapture, build despair. 



They touched him with imagination's rod. 



The power that built these heavens that soar and seem- 

 These heavens that are the daring of some God 



Stirred by the lyric dream. 



And then (for oh. the Aluses do not spare!) 



They set for him one final gift apart: 

 They gave him sorrow as a pack to bear. 



Sorrow to break the heart. 



II 



And so they called the poet into Time, 



The saddest and the proudest of the race 



That ever came this way with sound of rhyme, 

 In quest of Beauty's face. 



He came with rumor of the mystery, 



Crying the wonder ever on before, 

 The laureate of dreams that cannot be. 



Of Night and the Nevermore. 



