TO EDGAR ALLAN POE
by: Sarah Helen Whitman
(1803-1878)
- F thy sad heart, pining for human
love,
- In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,
- Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove
- Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere
- Wherein thy spirit wandered, -- if the flowers
- That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom
- In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,
- When all who loved had left thee to thy doom,--
- Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale
- Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain
- So much of Heaven's sweet grace as shall avail
- To lift its burden of remorseful pain,
- My soul shall meet thee, and its Heaven forego
- Till God's great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven bestow.
"To Edgar Allan Poe" is
reprinted from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900.
Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915. |
MORE POEMS BY SARAH HELEN WHITMAN |
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