The Misfortunates Poem by Joseph Oladehinde Ibikunle

What a prodigy, dear Chatterton?
At your teens, you pioneer'd romance.
Alas, poverty be your mighty menace
The silent suicide of arsenic poison.
.
Poverty and tuberculosis in your battles,
All in the blush of bitter rejections.
A virtuoso bedridden in his afflictions,
Norwid, this life unfair - heaven rattles.
.
I mourn the life and death of Crosby;
Her poems and hymns her witness.
She had journey'd all her days in blindness
I imagine with pity how she pranced the lobby.
.
Your lines are great - though
They were written in distress.
Your tears when you mourn'd your mistress,
Your fourty was full of pain, Allan Poe.