Thou hast drawn, fondly, sir

Into every mind and heart

A tragic melodrama sure

To endear them to thy art

 

Thy words have woken loves and fear

Unbeknownst 'till then

Unparallelled throughout the years

By any other noble pen

 

Untimely the deaths of all thy peers

Have cert'ly lent to thy words and deeds

Awoken, nightly, by thy tears

Bleeding onto paper as early seeds

 

Growing then to dark-lit tales

Foretelling some impending doom

Imagination which never fails

To excite the mossy mind of gloom

 

Thy weeping willow shoulders

Hunched nobly o'er thy desk

Thoughts hindered by pebbles and boulders

Of each of life's dis-heart'ning tests

 

Ballads, sonnets, and refrains

Stories, poems, and song

Thou hath writ and given names

Burnt onto every poet's tongue

 

Surely, now, in sacred death

And past thy walls of haunted flesh

Thou feel'st some mighty angel's breath

And sail on golden seas afresh

 

In a glorious, bright, and wond'rous heav'n

Contrasting, sharp, thy days on earth

Now dwell you in fair Allysium'

Risen to new and happy birth

 

And, though your pen writes nevermore

Nor traverses palest pages

Your legacy shall still endure

Beyond the ending ages