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--- Poetry
Reminiscence
Feet
A Cento for Poe

A Cento is a poem constructed from lines or fragments of other poetry. This poem is uncommon in that as a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, all the fragments come from Poe's work.

A Cento for Poe

The angels, not half so happy in heaven

Because I feel that, in the heavens above,

At morn-at noon-at twilight dim-

To friends above, from fiends below,

the indignant ghost is riven.

 

Eternal dews come down in drops

By a route obscure and lonely,

With storms -- but where meanwhile

Joy’s voice so peacefull departed

murmuring in melody.

 

So shake the very Heaven on high

O God! on my funeral mind.

I mourn not that the desolate are

happier sweet, than I

But to be overcast, a voice from the future cries.

 

An angel throng, bedwinged, bedight

In veils and drowned in tears,

Comes down -- still down -- and down

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Can struggle to its destin’d eminence.