Annabel Lee

We're getting into the final days of April, so I figure that I'd better start hitting some of the major poems in my life to continue the celebration of National Poetry Month. I teach English for a living, so I happen to teach a few poems throughout the year. Surprise, surprise! I have learned to fall in love with some of the "classics." Edgar Allan Poe is possibly my favorite American author, and this is my favorite poem of his. Among many other reasons I love this poem, I love how he arranged it and created a meter that reminds me of the ocean waves lapping up on the shore of the "kingdom by the sea." See if you agree...

Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe

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 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, chilling

 My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

 And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

 In this kingdom by the sea.



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 by night,

 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,

 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 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 her sepulchre there by the sea,

 In her tomb by the sounding sea.