Annabel Lee is the last poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe's death that same year, appearing in two newspapers.

Like Poe's most famous poem, The Raven, it tells of a man mourning a dead lover. It is unclear whether the Annabel Lee character referred to a real person. Some say it was written for his wife, some for a lover, and others that it was the product of Poe's gloomy imagination.

Annabel Lee is six stanzas, three with six lines and three with eight, with the rhyme pattern differing slightly in each one.

The poem begins as if from a storyteller's point of view, where Edgar Allan Poe begins to explain the couple's love, which dates from their growing up together.

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-

Annabel Lee dies because "the angels" envied the couple's great love.

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.

However, unlike The Raven, in which the narrator believes he will "nevermore" be reunited with his love, Annabel Lee says the two will be together again:

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

See also

Nabokov's Lolita, in which a major character is named Annabel Leigh.

External link

• Complete text of Annabel Lee on Wikisource