Highlight Poetry (9)

Highlight Poetry is a meme created by Lace & Lavender Hints to celebrate a poem once a week.

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.

Oh the cadence of this poem - probably the thing that strikes me the most - how fun it is to recite this poem aloud.  This has been a favorite of mine ever since I was young.  It is very melancholy and depressing isn't it?  I am sure I was not unhappy when I was a child (and she was a child).  I think the love that endures after death is haunting and beautiful and that might have appealed to me then.  I find the idea of angels being jealous of humans very interesting now - the very idea that angels can be jealous of humans at all - and romantic love as such a potent and desirable thing that all crave it.