"Annabel Lee" By Edgar Allen Poe
Poster by Nicholas Sinatra
"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen 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 wingèd 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.
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;
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.
Annotations
Literal
Situation
The speaker is in a deep young romantic love relationship with his muse, idol, and childhood friend Annabel Lee. However, "seraphs of Heaven" become jealous of this romantic relationship. They use what power they have to kill Annabel Lee and they succeed in doing so. Yet the speaker despite her death and his mourning for her continues to love her proving that "love conquers all".
The speaker is telling this after it happened since the majority of the narritive poem is in past tense. He speaks in romantically tragic tone as he explains his great lose of Annabel Lee's death.
Structure
Language
Musical Devices
Photos
"Annabel Lee" Narrated
Works Cited
"POEM ~ Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE>.