THE RAVEN

Westminster Hall, a converted Gothic Revival church built on arches above the Westminster Burying Grounds, established in 1786.  Beneath gravestones, decorated tablets and slabs, granite vaults and catacombs, many now with rusted or broken locks rest hundreds of soldiers from the American Revolution and the War of 1812.  Alongside are remains of political and civic leaders of the time. Perhaps the most notable among residents here is Edgar Allan Poe.  Though not originally his burial place, he was moved here and placed in an unmarked grave at the back of the grounds.  In the late 1800s, school children in Baltimore, through a project called "Pennies for Poe" raised funds for a proper monument.  Poe, his wife Virginia, and mother-in-law Maria were reinterred for their final rest just inside the gates to the church. 

Three roses.  Cognac.  Mystery.  For sixty-years, on the 19th of January, the anniversary of Poe's death in 1849, a visitor to the burial grounds left these as a "memorial" at Poe's gravesite.  Although some have made claim to being this visitor, no identity has ever been confirmed.  The gifts were never again left after 19 January 2009.  It remains a mystery.

 

"This it is and nothing more."  THE RAVEN 

First published in the American Whig Review, 1845

And, of course, JUNE visits, though with a single rose, and wearing her Ravens cap.