By Leni Marlina**
In Boston's winding streets, where shadows whisper low,
A soul emerged, in Edgar Allan Poe, to grieve and grow.
From an orphaned heart, young Poe embraced the night's embrace,
Where sorrow's tendrils wove their tale of time and space.
John Allan's care, a tempest's blend of warmth and woe,
Yet Poe, with ink and quill, found solace in the ebb and flow.
"Tamerlane" unfurled, a cryptic, veiled quest to find,
Anonymity cloaked his heart as he sought to unbind.
In tales of gothic lore, where darkness swells and sways,
"The Fall of Usher" tolled like funeral bells in moonlit haze.
But in "The Raven," with its mournful cries and song,
"Nevermore" echoed beneath starry skies all night long.
Each verse is a thread in melancholic flight, he wove,
Where Poe's own soul danced with the shadows, as stars above.
Virginia, love's own tempest, pure and keen as the sea,
In "Annabel Lee," where winds and waves convene endlessly.
Through swirling mists of sorrow's endless knell and glow,
Poe's pen, a beacon, through the poet's tale of time we know.
In the critic's gaze, he wielded the blade and pen, so bright and strong,
A legacy enduring beyond life's own sweet, perfect song.
Mysterious demise, on Baltimore's street and at night,
Where shadows whispered, bittersweet, and touched the fading light.
Yet in his words, his spirit ever soars, the soul of the night,
A poet's journey, through the dark, haunted shores of light.
Edgar Allan Poe, in dreams he did impart, the heart,
A labyrinth of chambers in the human heart we grow and start.
His legacy, a lantern in the storm, his sea of love,
Inviting all to wander, to the highest skies above.
Burwood - Melbourne, October 2012
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*The poem was originally featured in Leni Marlina's private poem collection in October 2012 and it was revised in October 2023
**Since 2006, the author has dedicated herself as the lecturer at the Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang. She is also the founder and head of the World Children's Literature Community (WCLC). Additionally, she has been an active member of the Satu Pena West Sumatra Writers Association since 2022, and has been involved with the Victoria Writers in Australia since 2012.
The References in Writing the Poem above:
Buranelli, V. (1999). *Edgar Allan Poe*. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers.
Meyers, J. (1992). *Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy*. New York, NY: Cooper Square Press.
Quinn, A. H. (Ed.). (1997). *Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography*. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Silverman, K. (1991). *Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance*. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.
