Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Check out this poem by Edgar Allan Poe - it's such a haunting tribute to eternal love. I completely adore it. The intense emotional depth makes it sooooo moving. In it, love transcends the biggest and most cruel, yet inevitable, separation: death.

The 'kingdom by the sea' is timeless and ethereal, giving the poem a fairytale quality. The verses flow; the repetition of 'Annabel Lee' creates a sense of longing and devotion, as if the narrator is trying to cling to the memory of his love. The love is so strong that even the angels in heaven are envious. Wow.

The narrator believes that nothing can break the connection he shares with his beloved - their souls are intertwined for eternity. Poe shows us how the fragility of life is so sad - the fact that to love means that one must suffer loss - with such beautiful language and imagery.

Annabel Lee resonates with us all because of the universal longing to believe that true love can conquer death. It's what we all want to believe. I've been a complete romantic all my life and this poem really moves me.

Enjoy...

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.