A Lady Visits Maria Clemm

A LADY VISITS MARIA CLEMM Your darling Eddie's grave is there, buried beneath the church's care, though claimed to be a nobler plot, 'tis underneath the church, and not, the sight a memory should share! But look yourself, your eyes are for the seeing truth, in Baltimore, beneath the cinders, dust, and grime, dressed in a garb as old as time, less than a beggar ever wore. And buried are his eyes so deep, beneath the prayer of God's own keep, to hear the bells not as he should, or breathe God's Heaven, if he could, eyes wide awake--he'll never sleep. My tears are born of lunacy, from seeing how his death must be; and hoping you might care as well, to save his soul out of this hell; though I've told not a soul, but thee. © Ron Arbuthnot (Footnote: in 1860, 11 years after the death of Edgar Allan Poe, a lady called on Maria Clemm in Alexandria, VA and reported his grave to be in the above deplorable location and condition. It started a movement that continues to this day.)