To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth and 160 death (and birth as a true legend) of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, I put here a poem of which is strikingly consistent with this fact.
His death will be forever shrouded in mystery (have managed theories ranging from suicide, murder, cholera, rabies, syphilis, diabetes, several types of enzyme deficiencies, stroke, delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, meningitis and even have been co-opted by election officials that led him to drink to do so to vote and then, drunk, abandoned to their fate) and that from that was found wandering in great distress and delirious in the streets of Baltimore (with clothing that was not his and that he could not explain the origin, nor because he was in that state) to get killed in the hospital 3 days later, exclaiming as last words: "Lord, help my poor soul" ("Lord, help my poor soul").
course, Spirits of the Dead, in English in order to appreciate its magnitude:
Spirits of the Dead
Thy Soul Shall find Itself alone
'Mid dark gray Thoughts of the tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness–for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.
The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
