Story Behind The Song

This poem is based on the fact that every year in Baltimore, on Edgar Akkab Oie's Birthday, someone appears at his tombstone and leaves 3 roses and a flask of cognac there. No one has ever seen this mysterious person or knows who they might be, but some

Lyrics

There called on me one winters day,
at my chateau, near Poitiers,
just south of Paris, I call home,
a stranger with the strangest way--

she dressed the weather, freezing cold
and dark as night and cuffs all rolled;
so dressed was she I couldn't know
if she were young, or almost old.

But what she'd come from Baltimore
to my chateau, to see me for,
was but to hire me and my time--
to solve a puzzle, she implore!

Explained she of a cherished one
though many years he dead and gone,
she called each year, the day he borned
to shed some tears there at his stone--

and furthermore, she told me then,
when she arrive, someone has been
already there, and let to lay
three roses and cognac for him.

So what was then her mystery--
became the same for she and me,
to name the stranger--or to live
in darkness for eternity!

I had but only 3 days for
to make my way to Baltimore,
so flew from Orly to New York--
then rode the train down eastern shore.

And January's cold held fast
the winter set as winters past--
as blowed the snow into my face
I bowed down to his stone at last!

So strange the haunting I did feel,
there at his likeness, almost real,
seemed grasping me in bitter cold
to chill my soul, where I did kneel--

and suddenly a voice I hear
just whispering into my ear--
"you'll know the secret nevermore!"
Who told those words was not so clear--

but standing was a lady fair
just at my side--almost not there!
and when I begged she tell her name--
she disappeared--into nowhere!

The morrow was the day to be,
so planned I one cold night for me,
to stroll about and find the soul
who made us our great mystery.

Observed I then just ev'ryone
who came to see, and then was gone;
but never once did one appear
whom I could pin the deed upon!

And watched I all the night! I be
obsessed with being there, to see
just who would leave some spirits there
and join it with the roses three!

And walked I in a dreaming state,
about the cold I grew to hate,
I must have dozed as strolling there
or mesmerized by hands of fate!

And when I jolted fast awake
at mornings light, there no mistake,
the roses three were laying there
just at his stone, my breath it take!

And quick I spied around of me
my heart but beating, just to see
the face of who had passed me there,
but not a soul was there to be!

And now I sit at my chateau
to ponder on, but never know
who brought those spirits and then leave
so faint I never saw them go!

The mystery--in Baltimore--
is what a mystery is for--
to think upon, with passing time,
and it shall be, forevermore.!