me--could they really be dead?--gone forever from the scenes which
had known them and of which they seemed an integral part? Oh, mystery of
mysteries, how was it possible?--Yet here were their names plainly
written upon the marbles! The church builded by men's hands, the trees
planted by men's hands, the monuments fashioned by men's hands remained,
but the living, breathing men, where were they? Could it be that God's
highest creation was a more perishable thing than the lifeless work of
its own hand? His spirit cried out within him against such a thought.
No, it could not be! Gone from earth, or holden from mortal vision they
assuredly were--departed--but dead? No!

Finally he came to the grave beside the wall. No marble tomb told the
passer-by that there lay the body of Elizabeth Poe. Yet, what
matter?--Was her sleep the less peaceful? Was her tired spirit the less
free?--If in its flight it should visit this spot where it had laid the
burden of the body down, surely it would find, for all there was no
carven stone to mark it, a most sweet spot. The greenest of grass, and
clover with blossoms white and red, waved over it--the summer breeze
rippling through them with pleasant sound,--and the tall trees hung a
green canopy between it and the midday sun.

As he laid his offering of roses among the clover blooms and turned to
go away the bell in the steeple began to toll. How the past came
back!--He stood with uncovered and bowed head and counted the strokes.
Suddenly, there was a sound of horses tramping in the street below the
wall. Then through the gate and down the walk it came--the solemn
procession.

He waited until the last of the mourners had passed into the church,
then followed, and as the bell stopped tolling and the organ began to
play the familiar, moving chant, he passed in and took a seat near the
door. Whose funeral service he was attending he knew not--but he was
back in childhood, and it was beautiful to him to hear once more, in
this very church, the words of spoken music and the old familiar hymns
he had heard that day when his infant heart had been filled with a
beautiful sorrow that was not pain.

More than one pair of eyes turned to see the owner of the fine tenor
voice that joined in the singing of the hymns, and resting for a moment
upon the dark, uplifted eyes of Edgar Poe, caught a glimpse of something
not of this earth.

As he left the church and churchyard, he noted many changes in its
i