Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee is the last poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe's death that same year, appearing in two newspapers.

Like Poe's most famous poem, The Raven, it tells of a man mourning a dead lover. It is unclear whether the Annabel Lee character referred to a real person. Some say it was written for his wife, some for a lover, and others that it was the product of Poe's gloomy imagination.

Annabel Lee is six stanzas, three with six lines, one with seven, and two with eight, with the rhyme pattern differing slightly in each one.

The poem begins as if from a storyteller's point of view, where Edgar Allan Poe begins to explain the couple's love, which originates from their childhood.

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 dies because "the angels" envied the couple's great love.

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.

However, unlike The Raven, in which the narrator believes he will "nevermore" be reunited with his love, Annabel Lee says the two will be together again:

But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we—Of many far wiser than we—And neither the angels in Heaven aboveNor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel LeeAnd so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,In the sepulchre there by the sea-In her tomb by the sounding sea

See also

* Nabokov's Lolita, in which a major character is named Annabel Leigh.
* The Tiger Army song Annabel Lee refers to the poem.
* The Bright Eyes song Jestabel Removes The Undesirables has references to the poem.
* The MC Lars song Mr. Raven refers to the poem.
* The Marissa Nadler arrangement of Annabelle Lee in ther album Ballads of Living and Dying
* The Lucyfire song Annabel Lee refers to the poem.

External links