The Conservative (Lovecraft)/March 1923/Thomas Holley Chivers

by Samuel Loveman

Thomas Holley Chivers

(Buried at Decatur, Georgia)

Beneath these pines and lucent skies,
Forgotten, save by those that know,
The loneliest Immortal lies—
A poet and the friend of Poe.

Somewhere on Heaven’s chancel floor,
Where wandering stars and orbits meet
So high, it dared no longer soar,
His song rose marvellously sweet.

He sang of Heaven ere twilight fell,
Of cherubim and seraphim,
And in the radiance visible,
Their loneliness crept over him.

Something half-alien and remote,
A sense of gold on lips athrong,
And from that perilous lyric throat,
The wonder of celestinl song.

And he who utter’d in his mood
The music of the stars and sun,
Lies here as any mortal would,
A serf to long oblivion.

—Samuel Loveman.

Georgia, 1918.