RPO -- Edgar Allan Poe : Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Annabel Lee

1It was many and many a year ago,

2 In a kingdom by the sea,

3That a maiden there lived whom you may know

4 By the name of Annabel Lee;--

5And this maiden she lived with no other thought

6 Than to love and be loved by me.

7I was a child and she was a child,

8 In this kingdom by the sea;

9But we loved with a love that was more than love--

10 I and my Annabel Lee--

11With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven

12 Coveted her and me.

13And this was the reason that, long ago,

14 In this kingdom by the sea,

15A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

16 My beautiful Annabel Lee;

17So that her high-born kinsmen came

18 And bore her away from me,

19To shut her up in a sepulchre,

20 In this kingdom by the sea.

21The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

22 Went envying her and me--

23Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

24 In this kingdom by the sea)

25That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

26 Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

27But our love it was stronger by far than the love

28 Of those who were older than we--

29 Of many far wiser than we--

30And neither the angels in Heaven above,

31 Nor the demons down under the sea,

32Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

33 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

34For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

35 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

36And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

37 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

38And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

39Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

40 In her sepulchre there by the sea--

41 In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Notes

7] A manuscript version written Sept. 26, 1849, reverses "I" and "she" (George Edward Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe [Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1909], II, 352). Never content unless tinkering, Poe this time did not improve his work (e.g., line 41).

15] cloud, chilling: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "cloud by night".

16] My beautiful: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "Chilling my".

17] kinsmen: "kinsman" in the 1850 edition.

25] cloud by night: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "cloud, chilling".

26] Chilling and killing: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "And killing".

33] Possibly indebted to the Episcopal funeral service and its use of Romans 8:38-39: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (cited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969], I, 481).

36] feel: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "see".

41] by the sounding sea: the manuscript version of Sept. 26 reads "by the side of the sea".

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Edgar Allan Poe, Works, ed. R. W. Griswold, II (New York: J. S. Redfield, 1850), 27-28. For a later version (Sept. 1849), see Collected Work of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1969), I, 478-79; and George E. Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, II (1909): opp. p. 352.
First publication date: 1849
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2.0.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/4

Composition date: May 1849
Rhyme: irregularly rhyming

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