Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

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 (1) 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 kinsmen (3) 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 (4) 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.

VOCABULARY

 wingèd seraphs (1) Celestial Beings: In the poem Annabel Lee the narrator notes that demons, angels and winged seraphs are jealous of his love with Annabel

Coveted (2) desired or envied.

highborn kinsmen (3) In the poem "Annabel Lee," the highborn kinsmen are Annabel Lee's relatives—probably her father and her brothers, since it normally would be close relations who take a dead body away for burial in a sepulchre. Because the speaker refers to them as "highborn," he probably is of a lower status than they are.

dissever (4) divide

OPEN THIS LINK AND DISCOVER…

1- Click here to find some more information on the poem

And some more...

2-Click here to learn about the author: Edgar Allan Poe

HIS LIFE:

TOPIC:

The death of a young woman:

Edgar Allan Poe wrote : “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world”.   

Poe’s obsession with portraying dead and dying women in his literature is likely rooted in the immense grief and loss that he experienced afer the deaths of several key women in his life, including his mother and his young wife.

Many male writers and artists used the death of young women as their inspiration during the Victorian Age: Baudelaire, William Butler Yeats, Alfred Tennyson,are examples of this trend.

THE DEAD OF A YOUNG WOMAN IN FOLK SONGS

MOLLY MALONE: Although set in Ireland's capital and beloved by many of its citizens, the song was originally published in the USA in 1883 and is attributed to the Scottish composer James Yorkston.  A statue representing Molly Malone was unveiled on Grafton Street by then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ben Briscoe, during the 1988 Dublin Millennium celebrations, In July 2014, the statue was relocated to Suffolk Street, in front of the Tourist Information Office . 

The song is the unofficial Dublin´s anthem 

 

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE: Oh My Darling, Clementine" is an American western folk ballad in trochaic meter usually credited to Percy Montrose (1884), although it is sometimes credited to Barker Bradford. The song is believed to have been based on another song called "Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden" by H. S. Thompson (1863). It is commonly performed in the key of F Major. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time

My Darling Clementine is regarded by many film critics as one of the best Westerns ever made.