Annabel Lee

 

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; 

By this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more that love—

I and my Annabel 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 her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulcher

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angles, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me:

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In the kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling

And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far that the love

Of those who were older that we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angles in Heaven above

Nor the demons 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 so, all the nighttide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her sepulcher there by the sea—

In her tomb by the side of the sea.

 

--Edgar Allen Poe

 

 

 

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