"At the Home of Poe" by Frank Belknap Long

A Poem in Prose. To H.P. Lovecraft.

Published in 1922

Virginia = Virginia Eliza Clemm, Poe's cousin. Poe married Clemm (in May of 1836) when he was 27 and she was 13. She died of "consumption" (i.e. tuberculosis) 11 years later (Jan 1847). Poe died nearly three years after that (Oct 1849). Virginia was diagnosed with TB in 1842. They would move to a cottage in the Bronx (May 1846), where she died less than a year later.

"Of the Raven hair" - of course an allusion to Poe's poem of "The Raven", published in Jan 1845, so well after Virginia had fallen ill, but before they had moved to New York.

Virginia in this poem is said to be of the south. She was, in fact, born in Maryland. Maryland is an interesting case: its northern border is the Mason-Dixon Line, which at the time it was surveyed, it was the defining line of what constituted the south (Maryland was a slave state, as were all other states below the Mason-Dixon Line, while states above the line were not slave states), and yet when the Civil War came along, Maryland stayed in the Union. Probably more for fear of their geographic strategic position rather than any loyalty to the Union. Even when I was a kid, you could find a lot of pro-Southern attitude/sentiment in Maryland. I haven't been there in decades, so not sure how it is now, but it does make for an interesting case study in how to define the American South.

At some point after Virginia's death, I'm not clear when, Poe would move to Rhode Island, then off to Richmond, and finally Baltimore. Bit of a rambler there in the last two years, but the death of his wife seems to have hit him really hard and he struggled mightily with it. Indeed, newspaper reports of his death at the time suggested alcoholism (euphemistically called "congestion of the brain"). But all medical records of his death have been lost, leading to all manner of wild speculation as to the actual cause of death. Regardless, he did drink heavily his last few years, that much is certain.

The picture used is of the Poe Cottage in the Bronx

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30637/30637-h/30637-h.htm#Page_140