Portrait of Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe
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 ?
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe is a poem of remembrance, in which an unnamed narrator thinks about the woman he loved, a woman who died.
The narrator of the poem declares that Annabel Lee died because their love was so strong the angels grew jealous and killed her.
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)
Poe wrote Annabel Lee two years after his wife died of tuberculosis at age 24.
The poem ends with the narrator going to the sea and looking up to the heavens. The moonbeams carry memories of his lost love, and he sees the brightness of her eyes in the starlight.
?For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams, of the beautiful Annabel Lee.?
Annabel Lee was Poe?s last poem. Poe only lived for two years after his wife?s death. Annabel Lee was published in the New York Daily Tribune two days after Poe died. It was part of his obituary.
Here is the full text of 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.
Annabel Lee by Treesnake. https://www.deviantart.com/treesnake
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 wingd 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 kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
Gustave Dore illustration originally inspired by another Poe poem: The Raven.
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;
Annabel Lee by French artist Anne Bachelier.
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.
