Poe

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

Upon the summit of his Century
He reared a Palace of enduring Art,
From whose wild windows never more depart
Beauty's pale light and starry fantasy:
Within is music, sobbing ceaselessly;
And phantom terror, spectres of the heart
And ghosts of grief and love that ever start
From haunted places, fleeing what none may see.
Around its towers the bird, that never dies,
Circles; the tempest beats with black alarm
On one red window where, beyond the storm,
The Lord of that high Palace dreams and sighs,
His Soul, with its Despair, a kingly form,
And Death with infinite pity in his eyes.