Edgar Allan Poe: Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

62. A PAEAN

I.

How shall the burial rite be read?
    The solemn song be sung ?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
    That ever died so young?

II.

Her friends are gazing on her,
    And on her gaudy bier,
And weep ! - oh! to dishonor
    Dead beauty with a tear!

III.

They loved her for her wealth -
    And they hated her for her pride -
But she grew in feeble health,
    And they love her - that she died.

IV.

They tell me (while they speak
    Of her "costly broider'd pall")
That my voice is growing weak -
    That I should not sing at all -

V.

Or that my tone should be
    Tun'd to such solemn song
So mournfully - so mournfully,
    That the dead may feel no wrong.

VI.

But she is gone above,
    With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
    Of the dead, who is my bride. -

VII.

Of the dead - dead who lies
    All perfum'd there,
With the death upon her eyes,
    And the life upon her hair.

VIII.

Thus on the coffin loud and long
    I strike - the murmur sent
Through the grey chambers to my song,
    Shall be the accompaniment.

IX.

Thou died'st in thy life's June -
    But thou did'st not die too fair:
Thou did'st not die too soon,
    Nor with too calm an air.

X.