Text: Alonzo Lewis, “To Edgar A. Poe,” Godey's Lady's Book (Philadelphia, PA), vol. 34, no. 4, April 1847, p. 192

I read thy “Song of the Raven,” Poe:

The thrilling notes of its magic flow

Sunk into my heart, like the summer rain

In the thirsty earth, till it glowed again.

 

When I read the first lines of that wondrous song,

That doth to a brighter world belong,

I said — no poet of Freedom's land

On the summit of such a height can stand.

 

‘Tis a clime of supernal ether rare,

No mortal poet can breathe and bear;

And he must make, in his sad confusion,

A “most lame and impotent conclusion.”

 

Another verse, and I seemed to stand

On the verge of limitless Fairy Land,

While spirits were passing to and fro,

And the earth lay far and dark below.

 

Then I went higher, and higher still,

O’er the summit of many a star-crowned hill,

Through the trackless realms of immortal mind,

Which the sons of song alone can find.

 

Could I have my choice of the treasured lore

Of classic land, I would give more

The author of that strange song to be,

Than of volumes of unread casuistry.

 

There are hearts so cold they may never feel

The thrills which the harp's fine strings reveal;

But while my life's warm pulses flow,

I bless thy name and thy memory, Poe.

 

A thousand brilliant years may flit,

And still that classic bird will sit,

As he sat in the golden days of yore,

On the bust of Pallas above the door.

 

A thousand strains may rise and sink

In the bubbles of old Castalia's brink —

But thy lay shall float by Song's bright shore,

On the countless tides of “Evermore.”

 

And many a heart in this dark, cold world,

From its throne of sweet affection hurled,

As it cons that strange, wild ballad o’er,

Will sigh for its own loved, lost Lenore.