Ah, broken
is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the
bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And,
Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?--weep now or never more!
See on
yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come!
let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--
An anthem
for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--
A dirge
for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Wretches!
ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when
she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!
How shall
the
ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung
By you--by
yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue
That
did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"
Peccavimus;
but
rave not thus! and let the Sabbath song
Go up
to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet
Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving
thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--
For her,
the fair and debonnaire , that now so lowly lies,
The life
upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--
The life
still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.
Avaunt!
to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
But waft
the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!
Let no
bell
toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should
catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnèd Earth.
To friends
above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--
From
Hell unto a high estate far up within Heaven--
From
grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."