Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Edgar Allan Poe. 18091849695. 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. | |
And this maiden she lived with no other thought | 5 |
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 Annabel Lee, | 10 |
With a love that the wingèd 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, chilling | 15 |
My beautiful Annabel Lee, | |
So that her high-born kinsmen came | |
And bore her away from me, | |
To shut her up in a sepulchre | |
In this kingdom by the sea. | 20 |
The angels, not half so happy in heaven, | |
Went envying her 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 one night, | 25 |
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 angels in heaven above, | 30 |
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; | 35 |
And the stars never rise, but I feel 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 the sepulchre there by the sea, | 40 |
In her tomb by the sounding sea. |