The Hero of Our Play*

The Hero of Our Play

 

Written in Admiration for Edgar Allan Poe[1]

Who Heroically Explored the Realm of Death

And Spoke to Us of His Journey in a Voice

That Transcends the Ages of Mankind

 

You raged against an iron gate

Until through it, you slipped,

A disembodied page of love

That from life’s book

 

Was clipped

 

You tasted tears the angels wept;

You muttered with the mimes,

 

Who fretted in their helplessness,

And bled in perfect rhymes

 

You writhed within the worm that ate,

But still, the curtains closed;

 

You were the hero of our play,

And this, the poet knows.