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- BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Beneath
the glistening stars of a winter`s night, a mysterious black-clad stranger
made his yearly pilgrimage to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, leaving behind
three red roses and a bottle of French cognac.
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- For more than half a century, a man wearing a black hat,
black overcoat and white scarf has appeared between midnight and dawn on
Jan. 19 in the gothic graveyard at Westminster Church to toast the author
on his birthday.
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- In a tradition true to the spirit of the author famous
for his eerie tales, no one knows the identity of the visitor or has ever
guessed the origin or true meaning of the ritual at the grave where Poe
lies buried alongside his wife Virginia and aunt Maria Clemm.
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- This year, the stranger -- believed by some to be a
son of the man who originated the ceremony in 1949 -- drank his toast at
about 2 a.m. EST Wednesday, paused briefly with his hand on the obelisk
tombstone and disappeared like the ``dream within a dream`` that was Poe`s
mournful image for the transience of human life.
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- The crowd that usually gathers outside the churchyard`s
brick wall to catch a glimpse of the visitor was kept indoors by sub-freezing
temperatures.
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- ``Everybody always wants to know who the guy is,`` said
Jeff Jerome, curator of Baltimore`s Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum,
who has held a pre-dawn vigil for the stranger inside Westminster Church
each year since 1978.
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- ``But to quote Poe himself: `There are some secrets
that do not permit themselves to be revealed.` And this is one of them,``
he said.
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- Born in Boston in 1809, Poe is best known for his poem
``The Raven`` and for darkly conceived stories such as ``The Telltale
Heart,`` ``The Pit and the Pendulum`` and ``The Fall of the House of Usher.``
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- Jerome said the roses left behind at the grave are obvious
tributes to Poe, his wife and his aunt.
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- But the cognac`s role in the ritual is a mystery unto
itself. The curator maintains that Poe never mentioned the liquor in any
of his stories, poems, essays or letters.
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