Poems

Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe

This poem appeared in The International Miscellany.
"Annabel Lee" is generally credited to represent Poe's
young wife, Virginia Clemm.

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 the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
-The End-

Fairy-Land
by Edgar Allan Poe

Dim vales� and shadowy floods�
And cloudy�looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane�
Again� again� again�
Every moment of the night�
Forever changing places�
And they put out the star�light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon�dial,
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down� still down� and down,
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be�
O'er the strange woods� o'er the sea�
Over spirits on the wing�
Over every drowsy thing�
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light�
And then, how deep!� O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like� almost anything�
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before�
Videlicet, a tent�
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never�contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
-The End-

To One in Paradise
by Edgar Allan Poe

Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine-
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"Onward!"- but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
The light of life is o'er!
"No more-- no more-- no more,"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my hours are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian streams.
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow!--
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!

-The End-