Diary

Edgar Allen Poe’s “Annabel Lee”

29 October 2004

I found a wonderful poem by Edgar Allen Poe that possesses remarkable musicality.

It was many and many a year ago,
        In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
        By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
        Than to love and be loved by me.

 

I was a child and she was a child,
      In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
      I and my Anabel Lee—
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
      Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
      In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
      Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
      And bore here away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
      In this kingdom by the sea.

The angles, not half so happy in Heaven,
      Went envying here and me:
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
      in this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling
      and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
      of those who were older than we—
      of many far wiser than we—       
And neither the angles in Heaven above
      nor the daemons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
      of the beautiful Annabel lee:

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
      Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
      Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
      In her sepulchre there by the sea-
      In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Author

Peter

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