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.

Según The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (vol. II, 1859), a partir de la transcripción de Wikisource en inglés. Se reunió una estrofa que esa edición parte con una línea en blanco.

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Sobre el poema

«Annabel Lee» es el último poema que Poe completó, publicado en 1849, el año de su muerte. Cuenta el amor de dos niños en un reino junto al mar, un amor tan grande que los ángeles, envidiosos, mandaron un viento frío que mató a Annabel Lee.

Pero la muerte no lo termina. El que habla insiste en que ni los ángeles del cielo ni los demonios del mar podrán separar su alma de la de ella, y cierra echándose cada noche junto a su tumba, a la orilla del mar. Muchos han leído «Annabel Lee» como una elegía por Virginia, la joven esposa de Poe, muerta dos años antes.

El verso se queda en inglés. Traducirlo de paso sería cambiar la obra por una paráfrasis de la obra. (Hay una traducción al español en la página de Traducciones.)