Annabel Lee

Love Poem 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.

She was a child and I 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 by night,
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born 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, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love 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 the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

NOTES

Edgar Allan Poe married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia, in 1836. She became tragically ill in 1842 and died in 1847. Poe's love for her and his mourning of her death are the subject of the love poem, "Annabel Lee."

Poe made several handwritten copies of "Annabel Lee" and distributed them among his friends. Poe may have believed that this would be his last poem.

"Annabel Lee" was first printed by the New York Daily Tribune on October 9, 1849, two days after Poe's death.

Some copies of "Annabel Lee" read the last line of the poem as, "In her tomb by the sounding sea.", a poetic line preferred by many. However, Poe wrote the line as, "In her tomb by the side of the sea.", a defining statement preferred by others.

I have printed "Annabel Lee" with the punctuation and phrases used by Poe in a May, 1849, handwritten copy of the poem which you may be interested in viewing at this Columbia University website.

The poem has a pleasant, flowing rhythm. It is written in lines of alternating tetrameter and trimeter, that is a line with four stressed syllables followed by a line with three stressed syllables.

The lines are mostly written with anapestic meter, meaning groups of three syllables with the third syllable being stressed, as in "In her tomb by the side of the sea." However, only the final stanza is consistently anapestic in meter. All other stanzas have substitutions of iambic feet, a two syllable group where the second syllable is stressed, for one or more anapests.

The second stanza is more irregular than the others with some spondaic elements also included. These are easily seen in the first and fourth lines where "she" and "I" are single stressed syllables that begin the line. The last two lines of the stanza exhibit an enjambment where the line's rhythm flows to the following line.

Rhyme is used throughout the poem, mostly in the words "sea," "me," and "Lee." They are found in each stanza, though the order changes. The fifth stanza also includes "we" as a rhyme. Numerous example of internal rhyme can also be found throughout the poem, most notably in lines such as, "But we loved with a love that was more than love," and "chilling and killing my Annabel Lee," and "can ever dissever my soul from the soul," and especially in several examples in the very strong final stanza.

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