Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead

Portrait of young
Edgar Allen Poe

The poem, “Spirits of the Dead” was written by Poe in 1827 when he was just 18 years old. This fact is impressive, considering this verse reflects both a subject matter and writing ability beyond Poe’s tender age.

He takes on one of life’s great mysteries in this poem. What happens when we die? He refers to the deceased in this poem only as “ thy soul” or “spirits.”

 Spirits of the Dead

Thy soul shall find itself alone

‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone—

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,

Whish is not loneliness—for then

The spirits of the dead who stood

In life before thee are again

In death around thee—and their will

Shall overshadow thee: be still.

The night, tho’ clear, shall frown—

And the stars shall look not down

From their high thrones in the heaven,

With light like Hope to mortals given—

But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee for ever.

Now our thoughts thou shalt not banish,

Now are visions ne’ er to vanish;

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more—like dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze—breath of God—is still—

 And the mist upon the hill,

Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,

Is a symbol and a token—

How it hangs upon the trees,

A mystery of mysteries!

Source: The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (1946)

Click to enlarge

There are as many interpretations of this poem as there are people who have read it so I will only share my thoughts.

I love Poe’s use of imaginary in this verse it made me pause and think.

Is he contemplating his own fear of death or is he referring to the loss of a loved one?—“Mid dark thoughts of tombstone.”

Regardless, he is obviously musing about what happens after death.

He questions:

Are we in limbo before our final journey?—“ The soul shall find itself alone.” “Not one, of all the crowd, to pry.”

Is our passage to the afterlife one of solitude?-- “find itself alone”

Or do we encounter loved ones to guide us? —“In life before thee, are again in death around thee.”

Do we retain our memories, or are they lost? --“No more, like dew-drop from the grass.”

He also questions why God leaves us in the dark?—“The breath of God is still.” I wonder if Poe’s contemporaries pointed him to the Bible to find the answer to this.

But Poe does not try to answer any of the questions he ponders. Instead, he just presents them for consideration. He acknowledges that death is life’s great secret.—“A mystery of mysteries!”

Here are links to other posts about Poe.

Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart

Where is Poe’s Ghost

The Ghosts of Fells Point

Sitting on a picturesque peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay is a small community called Fells Point that still embraces its roots.

Baltimore's Fells Point

Fells Point today is lined with quaint 18^th and 19^th century homes and storefronts. This area hosts several trendy bars and restaurants.

An Englishman, William Fell who originally owned this land, founded a shipbuilding business in 1726. His ships became the famous “Baltimore Schooners.”

Fells Point made an excellent port because its deep waters almost reach the shoreline. It was Baltimore’s main port for over 100 years.

Its original residents were the rowdy seamen that visited the Point along with the working-class citizens of Baltimore. They frequented the pubs and brothels that were located near this port.

This rich history is why many believe this area is haunted today. Most of the ghostly activity occurs in the pubs and along the streets in this small port community.

Red Light District

The Cats Eye Pub was also a brothel in the early days. It used a “red light switching system” that was common in establishments that provided its customers with prostitutes.

This system was a board with several red light bulbs. When a Lady of the Evening would flip her switch off, it signaled she was not available. When she was ready for her next client, she would flip her red light bulb on.

This switching system is where the term Red Light District comes from.

Today the renovated Cats Eye Pub is still used as a bar. A recent employee, Paige McClain states this old switching system was covered up by drywall when the building was renovated.

She and several other employees believe the spirits of these prostitutes haunt this pub.

The old switching system is located just below the ceiling near the front of the bar. Both employees and patrons have heard these switches engaging and disengaging.

The Whistling Oyster

This pub is located in a building that once was a row house. At one time it had a second floor.

In the early days, the owner decided he had no use for the second floor, so he had the staircase removed.

Today, patrons at the Whistling Oyster report seeing an apparition ascending this staircase, which no longer exists.

William Fell’s Ghost

The original owner of Fell’s Point is also said to haunt this peninsula. A man dressed in 18^th century clothing has been seen by several recent residents.

Coby Kay Callahan and her boyfriend Christopher Carter were heading home at 2:30 a.m. when they spotted a strangely dressed man walking into an alley up ahead.

When they reached the entrance to this alley, no one was in it. This sighting is not unusual. Several other witnessed have reported seeing this ghost.

He is seen late at night--normally after the bars have closed--walking along various streets in Fell’s Point.

It is said that this was probably his habit while alive.

Edgar Allan Poe

Another haunted pub located at Fells Point is The Horse You Come In On.

This pub is located on the last street before you reach the dock. It is believed this was one of Poe’s favorite places to drink.

I talk about this pub and several other places Poe’s ghost is said to haunt here.

Employees of this pub blame Poe’s ghost for several strange occurrences that happen.

One female bartender while preparing to open for business states that when she walked up to the cash register, it opened on its own. She closed the drawer and went about her business.

When she returned to the area, she was surprised to see the drawer open once more. She again closed it. After this, it opened several more times.

At the end of her shift when the next bartender arrived, she told him what had happened. He was not surprised. He informed her that it was just Edgar, their ghost. He told her the cash register drawer opening on its own was a common occurrence.

This female bartender found out quickly that if she talked to Poe, and acknowledged his presence, the activity slowed down for a while.

Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart

The Gothic short story The Tell-Tale Heart was written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in 1843. 

True to Poe’s form, he draws the reader into this story by having the insane villain of the tale narrate what happened in his * own words. 

I first heard this poem as a child. One of my older sisters practiced parts of it for hours out loud. She was preparing for a dramatic interpretation that she was to present at school. I can still hear her emphasis on certain words:

“ I talked more quickly--more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased…”

“Oh, God, what could I do? I formed--I raved--I swore!”

“It grew louder--louder--louder! I swung the chair on which I had been sitting…”

This perverse narrator kills an old man who lives with him. ** 

At the beginning of the story and throughout, he professes he is not insane. But in the same breath, he openly admits he killed, and dismembered the old man, and hid his body under the floorboards in this man’s bedroom. In fact, he talks with pride about how he planned the perfect crime.

But in the end, his own guilt and madness trip him up. 

Thinking he has even effectively deceived the police, he escorts them into the old man’s room. Sitting upon the bed where he smothered his victim to death, he is confident he has presented himself with “a pleasant and easy manner.” 

But then he begins to feel uncomfortable, and he starts to hear a ringing in his ears. This sound becomes louder and louder.

Poe’s next plot twist is why this story is a classic. 

Spiraling further into unreality, the narrator becomes convinced that the ringing in his ears is actually his victim’s heartbeat beneath his feet, beating louder and louder. 

Thinking the police must hear these beats as well, he loses complete control. He confesses his crime and tears the floorboards up to reveal the body in pieces. 

The irony here is the police actually do not hear anything, it is all in the narrator's head.

Edgar Allan Poe

*  Poe never makes clear whether the narrator's character is a man or a woman.

** Poe is also vague about why the narrator kills the old man other than the fact he has a strange eye, that disturbs the narrator. Some speculate that the old man’s pupil-less eye actually represented a secret he could use against the main character.

Here is a link to the story.

The following is my favorite version of The Tell-Tale Heart. It is an animated seven-minute feature made in 1953 and narrated by the English actor James Mason. This short film is preserved in the United States National Film Registry.

Where is Poe’s Ghost?

It appears Edgar Allan Poe’s ghost is one of the most prolific in history. If it is believed he haunts practically everywhere, he lived, visited or breathed. The challenge here is to sort through these various claims and figure out which have merit. 

I do believe in the old adage: “seeing is believing,” so I searched for witness accounts describing encounters with Poe’s ghost.

While alive Poe was a troubled genius who suffered from melancholia, today called depression. 

His life, which was mirrored in his poems and short stories reflect the tragedies he experienced. Poe was a heavy drinker and only lived for forty years.

Poe lost his parents before the age of three. He was raised by an indifferent guardian, John Allan, who disowned him while he was at the University of Virginia because of his drinking and irresponsible gambling. 

Poe tragically never could live up to Allan's expectations. When Allan died, he left Poe out of his will, which in effect put Poe into poverty for many years. 

He married his 13-year old cousin Virginia who died at a young age of tuberculosis. Virginia was Poe's one true love, so this loss left him devastated. The result-- his drinking worsened, and his behavior became more erratic.

Poe’s real-life informed his character’s lives. Almost all his work reflects the dark aspects of human nature. His characters often spiraled into madness triggered by love “The Raven” or hate “Tell-Tale Heart.” His work reflects an obsession with death because of his own losses. 

He wrote one of his most horrifying tales “Berenice” after Virginia’s death. In contrast, his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” defined what a good psychological thriller--detective story-- should be. 

His prose literally turned the short story genre into an art form and he, of course, is also considered the father of modern horror fiction.

Ironically, the two literary genres Poe is best known for mysteries and horror; are also reflected in how he died. Poe was found in a Baltimore gutter nearly unconscious, he was passing through on his way to visit his fiancée's family. 

He was taken to a hospital where he died four days later. While in the hospital, he was incoherent and shook uncontrollably. When the doctors offered him liquor, he refused it for he had stopped drinking.

The cause of his death remains a mystery. Many theories have been put forth, including arsenic, alcoholism, pneumonia, rabies, or drugs.

One theory that I find intriguing is that Poe was a victim of “Cooping.” Cooping was done on election days in the 1800s. It involved gangs of men who would kidnap their male victims off the streets, and then confine them in small containers similar to chicken coops. 

These men would beat their victims and force them to drink to the point where they lost their senses, and then they would put them in different clothes, take them to the polls and force them to vote many times. 

This might have happened to Poe because he was found near a fourth ward poll in the gutter on an election day. He was not wearing his own clothes. Instead, he had a cheap suit and hat on. It is also known he was not drinking at the time, but he was taken to the hospital in an inebriated state.

Poe was buried in Old Western Burial Grounds in an unmarked grave in 1874—when a gravestone was finally placed it had a carved raven upon it. 

Later the Westminster Presbyterian Church was built over part of this cemetery. So some graves are now only accessible via the catacombs under the church. These catacombs are very haunted—several people committed suicide in them between 1890 and 1920. 

Even though Poe’s grave was moved to an area above ground, several witnesses have seen his ghost in these catacombs.

His ghost has also been seen in the hallways of the hospital where he died. He has been spotted on the street near the house in Baltimore where he once lived. The house is haunted, but by most accounts not by Poe, but by his grandmother.

In Fells Point there is a bar by the name of “The Horse You Came in On” it was supposedly one of Poe’s favorite places to drink. Poe’s ghost is considered a troublemaker here. The chandelier swings by itself, and the owner and employees alike have seen the cash register open and close without cause. 

Many witnesses claim that if a patron denies the presence of Poe’s ghost, their bar stool is pulled out from under them, and beer bottles drop to the floor. Regulars at the Horse, which is the oldest continuously running bar in North America (established in 1775) verify these stories.

If believed Poe’s ghost haunts several other places.

Fort Monroe is one place that has eyewitness accounts. Once Poe’s guardian disowned him, he could not afford to stay at the University of Virginia. He joined the army instead. Poe is said to haunt Fort Monroe where he was stationed during this time. 

He was not happy while he was in the army, but he did write a collection of verse, entitled Al Aaraaf in 1829. At Monroe, his ghost has been seen writing while sitting at a desk.