That will be followed Oct. 10 by a dramatic staging of his funeral service at Westminster Hall. A horse-drawn hearse, preceded by a drum and fife corps, will bring Poe's ''body'' from his home on Amity Street for burial. ''Eulogies'' will be given by many who were influenced by Poe's works, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and Alfred Hitchcock (impersonators, of course).

YOU BE THE JUDGE

The yearlong tribute to Poe will wrap up in November with The Tell Tale Heart Court Case. The audience will decide -- after hearing all the facts -- whether the narrator of this chilling short story will be found guilty of murder or innocent by reason of insanity.

Baltimore's permanent Poe sites include the Edgar Allan Poe Collection at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (400 Cathedral Street, www.prattlibrary.org) and the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum (203 Amity Street).

The Poe House is where he lived with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia, later to become his wife. He was thought to have occupied the room in the attic, and some of his personal items on display include a telescope, sextant, a traveling desk he used while a student and the only known portrait of his wife.

Poe was known more for his melancholy than his merriment, but on my last night in Baltimore, I had a chance to see his whimsical side. Enjoying a dozen oysters on the half shell at Ryleigh's Oyster Bar, I was amused by a poem on a wall placard that never made it into any of the Poe anthologies I've ever seen. It reads:

Fill with mingled cream and amber,

I will drain that glass again

Such hilarious visions clamor

Through the chambers of my brain

Quaintest thoughts . . . queerest fancies

Come to life and fade away:

What care I how time advances?

I am drinking ale today.

Poe wrote it for the proprietor as payment for a bar tab he didn't have the cash to settle.

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