Text: Anonymous, “The Grave of Poe in Baltimore, Maryland,” Book News Monthly (Philadelphia, PA), vol. 25, no. 12, August 1907, pp. 810-811

[page 810, continued:]

BALTIMORE, storied in American annals; Baltimore, city of monuments, has yet but one clear claim upon the manes of the immortal American dead. In Boston, birthplace of the republic, they put tablets upon certain houses. So may the traveler read “here lived Longfellow;” on a certain quiet street in the lower slopes of Beacon Hill, “Here lived Charles Sumner’‘ — et genus omnes. But the syllogism of love is not wholly fulfilled. Our graves give not back again all of our great ones. Boston, seed of immortal Time, the child of the infinite it may be, the pale flower of undying destiny at least, honors the names of its great dead. Poe's epitaph in Baltimore, where he lies buried, might well be Keats’ own: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” For the grave of Poe in Baltimore is the least of all the monuments in that city. Indeed, it is nO monument — a tomb, with a low pedestal surmounting it, and a medallion carved thereon, set in a corner of the old Westminster Presbyterian Church, at [column2:] Fayette and Green streets, in the heart of the old city. That is all. It is an ancient churchyard, with never a sign to mark our modern world about it. The tombstones are overgrown with every kind of creeping plant; the vaults are fallen into decay, and almost crumble to the touch; the grass grows rank, and the hand of man has been quite withdrawn — except to dig a new grave here and there — for a century. Peace! To the observer this is the unbroken sentiment of Poe's last resting-place. Who of us, treading this hallowed ground, could ask more? Thank God, it is an old, old churchyard. The ideal burying spots of England harbor not more of reverence. All about are the tombs of the only aristocracy that this new world ever knew. Ivy and holly and yew intertwine over against the thoroughfare that skirts it on two sides, to shut out the least intrusion of an unhallowed present. It is indeed a sacred spot.

“Lord, help my poor soul,” groaned poor Poe at the last moment, twisting on [page 811:] his bed in the hospital where he died. They knew somehow, even in that crude time, better than to separate him at the end from among the creeds — his own, what there was of it, was Episcopalian — and so he came to a place in the yet undesecrated Presbyterian churchyard, the most beautiful still in all Baltimore — perhaps in all America. After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well here. The little old-fashioned sexton of the old-fashioned church, aroused unwillingly from his daily task — he has mighty little sentiment to waste over dead genius, although he is the repository of several quaint old tales of the author of “The Raven,” which he has inherited — will accompany you to the old dank spot, and will point you out the place of first interment, now quite unmarked.

The details of the death of Poe are a commonplace in Baltimore. He was a drunkard — he died. He went to his [column 2:] grave from the only true hospital in the town — named after our most truly great one, Washington — to a consecrated place which no man could deny to him in this churchyard of the best kirk in the domain. Afterwhiles, when the trumpet of fame had blown his name abroad to all the heights, they brought him over to the corner on the city street, where all may read as they run, peeping over the low wall through the iron railing. Again you ask yourself, as you turn for a last fond lingering look at the scene: Where in all this world of bustling civilization, heart of a great city, of a badgered, tumultous life, is there another churchyard like this one? Time seems to have presented it for the appropriate burial place of a great poet. The church itself looks as old as heaven; the mold is undisturbed on all the tombstones, as if to say: “Only the great rest here.” It is a miracle of rest — the scene! And here Poe sleeps.