Yearly Tribute to E. A. Poe

Since 1949 a mysterious Poe toaster has visited the grave of Poe in Baltimore, Maryland to deliver a half-empty bottle of cognac and three red roses as a birthday tribute. In 1993 the Poe admirer left a note stating, "The torch will be passed." Many believe that the orginial visitor passed on the tradition to his son, who visited Poe's tomb this morning.

A Dream within a Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

A Poem by Mary Oliver

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention,

how to fall down into the grass,

how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed,

how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Oliver begins with a description of a grasshopper, moves on to question what prayer is and how she prays. She then asks the reader what are you going to do with your life. Do the thoughts connect for you? If so, explain how.