_A Poem in Prose_
To H. P. Lovecraft
FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR.
The home of Poe! It is like a fairy dwelling, a gnomic palace built of
the aether of dreams. It is tiny and delicate and lovely, and replete
with memories of sere leaves in November and of lilies in April. It is a
castle of vanished hopes, of dimly-remembered dreams, of sad memories
older than the deluge. The dead years circle slowly and solemnly around
its low white walls, and clothe it in a mystic veil of unseen tears. And
many marvellous stories could this quaint little old house tell, many
weird and cryptic stories of him of the Raven hair, and high, pallid
brow, and sad, sweet face, and melancholy mien; and of the beloved
Virginia, that sweet child of a thousand magic visions, child of the
lonesome, pale-gray latter years, child of the soft and happy South. And
how the dreamer of the spheres must have loved this strange little
house. Every night the hollow boards of its porch must have echoed to
his footfall, and every morn the great rising sun must have sent its
rays through the little window, and bathed the lovely tresses of the
dream-child in mystical yellow. And perhaps there was laughter within
the walls of that house--laughter and merriment and singing. But we know
that the Evil One came at last, the grim humourless spectre who loves
not beauty, and is not of this world. And we know that the house of
youth and of love became a house of death, and that memories bitter as
the tears of a beautiful woman assailed the dreamer within. And at last
he himself left that house of mourning and sought solace among the
stars. But the house remains a vision out of a magical book; a thing
seen darkly as in a looking-glass; but lovely beyond the dreams of
mortals, and ineffably sad.
