A DIRGE FOR YOU

     Poe is everyone's first literary love. Kids are born with a fascination for the macabre and are naturally drawn to Poe's lurid tales. From my own youth, I recall fondly the movies, books and artwork inspired by Poe. None is more firmly etched in my mind than a book entitled simply Tales of Poe, from Reader's Digest's "Best Loved Books For Young Readers" series, first published in 1967. What I remember most about this book are the illustrations, one of which I have reproduced below.





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     This drawing is used to illustrate The Cask of Amontillado. Here, a rather devilish-looking Montresor guides a befuddled Fortunato through the catacombs. "We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by the arm." Of course, Fortunato wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. And neither would I. With this tale, Poe fettered me to his literary wall no less than Montresor had to the wall of granite the hapless Fortunato. For half a century, no mortal has disturbed either of us.
     But it wasn't just the stories that entranced me. It was also the lyricism of his poetry. Look, if you can get a kid to read poetry--at all!--you've accomplished something. Admittedly, I never got further than The Raven with perhaps smatterings of Annabel Lee and The Bells (the latter just for the sheer comic novelty of it). But I committed the first couple stanzas of The Raven to memory, and I still get goosebumps reading it. Not too many poets can lay claim to a 12-year-old's attention the way Poe can.
     Poe's poetry in general is peppered with memorable lines. These are from Lenore:

"Come! Let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young."
     Some things are just fun to say. "A dirge for her the doubly dead." Go ahead, try it. That might be my favorite line of all.
     Here's another from The Bells.

"And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls."
     And Annabel Lee:

"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
    Than to love and be loved by me."
     The Haunted Palace:

"While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh--but smile no more."
     One more. The Conqueror Worm:

"But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued."
     He had me at "blood-red thing that writhes" and sealed the deal with "human gore imbued". The fact that this writhing thing eats mimes is just a bonus.
     The real tragedy is that Poe died at the tender age of 39 when most writers are just starting to become read-worthy. Yet he was already producing stuff like this. Can you imagine what he might have written had he lived another 20 or 30 years? Alas!

"A dirge for him the doubly dead in that he died so young."