Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe(1809–1849)

The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1849

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan 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 winged seraphs of heavenCoveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee;So that her highborn kinsman cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn 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 loveOf 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 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 Lee;And 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.

As printed in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (vol. II, 1859), via the English Wikisource transcription. A stanza that edition splits with a blank line is rejoined.

Public domainThis poem is in the public domain. You may read it, copy it, recite it and publish it without asking anyone.

About the poem

«Annabel Lee» is the last poem Poe completed, published in 1849, the year he died. It tells of the love of two children in a kingdom by the sea, a love so great that the angels, envious, sent a cold wind that killed Annabel Lee.

But death does not end it. The speaker insists that neither the angels of heaven nor the demons under the sea can part his soul from hers, and closes by lying down each night beside her tomb, at the sea's edge. Many have read «Annabel Lee» as an elegy for Virginia, Poe's young wife, who had died two years before.