Poetry Performed Episode 001 - Spirts of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe



Episode 001 - Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe

As the year turns to fall, it is hard not to think of Edgar Allen Poe, and this week, as the calendar turns to October, we turn to Poe and his poem “Spirits of the Dead”

Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe
I

Thy soul shall find itself alone
’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone—
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

      II

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.

      III

The night, tho’ clear, shall frown—
And the stars shall look not 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.

      IV

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.
      V

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!

That was Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe was an American writer, perhaps better known as the father of the modern short story. Born in Boston in 1808, he was the child of actors, though they did not raise him - they were both dead before he was three years old. Throughout his life, Poe never received much financial support from his foster father John Allan, and struggled to support himself until he began working as an editor of a series of literary journals, starting with The Southern Literary Messenger. He died on October 7, 1849.


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