Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

   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.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

       Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

       By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

               Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

       Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

               Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

       For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

               And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

       Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

       And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

       Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

               Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

       Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

               And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

       And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

       Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

       Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

               Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

       Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,

               And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Foweles in the frith,

The fisses in the flod,

And I mon waxe wod;

Mulch sorwe I walke with

For best of bon and blod.

         For underfoot the herb was dry;

         And genial warmth; and o'er the sky

The silvery haze of summer drawn;

And calm that let the tapers burn

         Unwavering: not a cricket chirr'd:

         The brook alone far-off was heard,

And on the board the fluttering urn:

And bats went round in fragrant skies,

         And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes

         That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes;

While now we sang old songs that peal'd

         From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease,

         The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees

Laid their dark arms about the field.

But when those others, one by one,

         Withdrew themselves from me and night,

         And in the house light after light

Went out, and I was all alone,

A hunger seized my heart; I read

         Of that glad year which once had been,

         In those fall'n leaves which kept their green,

The noble letters of the dead:

And strangely on the silence broke

         The silent-speaking words, and strange

         Was love's dumb cry defying change

To test his worth; and strangely spoke

The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell

         On doubts that drive the coward back,

         And keen thro' wordy snares to track

Suggestion to her inmost cell.

So word by word, and line by line,

         The dead man touch'd me from the past,

         And all at once it seem'd at last

The living soul was flash'd on mine,

And mine in this was wound, and whirl'd

         About empyreal heights of thought,

         And came on that which is, and caught

The deep pulsations of the world,

Æonian music measuring out

         The steps of Time—the shocks of Chance—

         The blows of Death. At length my trance

Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.

Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame

         In matter-moulded forms of speech,

         Or ev'n for intellect to reach

Thro' memory that which I became:

Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd

         The knolls once more where, couch'd at ease,

         The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees

Laid their dark arms about the field:

And suck'd from out the distant gloom

         A breeze began to tremble o'er

         The large leaves of the sycamore,

And fluctuate all the still perfume,

And gathering freshlier overhead,

         Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung

         The heavy-folded rose, and flung

The lilies to and fro, and said

"The dawn, the dawn," and died away;

         And East and West, without a breath,

         Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,

To broaden into boundless day.