Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee

by Edgar Allan 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.

Hymn to the Night by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hymn to the Night

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Aspasie, trillistos.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

      Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

      From the celestial walls!

–

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

      Stoop o’er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

      As of the one I love.

–

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

      The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

      Like some old poet’s rhymes.

–

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

      My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there, —

      From those deep cisterns flows.

–

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear

      What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,

      And they complain no more.

–

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

      Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

      The best-beloved Night!

The Courtin’ by James Russell Lowell

God makes sech nights, all white an’ still
Fur ‘z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
All silence an’ all glisten.
–
Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
‘Ith no one nigh to hender.
–
A fireplace filled the room’s one side
With half a cord o’ wood in—
There warn’t no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin’.
–
The wa’nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An’ leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
–
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An’ in amongst ’em rusted
The ole queen’s arm thet gran’ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.
–
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin’,
An’ she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin’.
–
‘Twas kin’ o’ kingdom-come to look
On seek a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin’ to a brook
Ain’t modester nor sweeter.
–
He was six foot o’ man, A 1,
Clean grit an’ human natur’;
None couldn’t quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
–
He’d sparked it with full twenty gals,
He’d squired ’em, danced ’em, druv ’em,
Fust this one, an’ then thet, by spells—
All is, he couldn’t love ’em.
–
But long o’ her his veins ‘ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o’ sun
Ez a south slope in Ap’il.
–
She thought no v’ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
–
An’ she’d blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin’-bunnet
Felt somehow thru’ its crown a pair
O’ blue eyes sot upun it.
–
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to ‘ve gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he’d come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
–
She heered a foot, an’ knowed it tu;
A-raspin’ on the scraper,—
All ways to once her feelin’s flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
–
He kin’ o’ l’itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o’ the sekle,
His heart kep’ goin’ pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
–
An’ yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An’ on her apples kep’ to work,
Parin’ away like murder.
–
‘You want to see my Pa, I s’pose?’
‘Wal…no…I come dasignin”—
‘To see my Ma? She’s sprinklin’ clo’es
Agin to-morrer’s i’nin’.’
–
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don’t, ‘ould be presumin’;
Mebby to mean yes an’ say no
Comes nateral to women.
–
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t’other,
An’ on which one he felt the wust
He couldn’t ha’ told ye nuther.
–
Says he, ‘I’d better call agin;’
Says she, ‘Think likely, Mister;’
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An’… Wal, he up an’ kist her.
–
When Ma bimeby upon ’em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin’ o’ smily roun’ the lips
An’ teary roun’ the lashes.
–
For she was jes’ the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.
–
The blood clost roun’ her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin’,
Tell mother see how metters stood,
And gin ’em both her blessin’.
–
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o’ Fundy,
An’ all I know is they was cried
In meetin’ come nex’ Sunday.

– James Russell Lowell