poem

Annabel Lee — Aug 7, 2026

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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 winged 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 see 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 side of the sea.

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📖 About this poem

Poe wrote "Annabel Lee" as a lament that refuses to let grief stay quiet. It reads like a lullaby gone haunted, that rocking repetition of "kingdom by the sea" and the name Annabel Lee itself working almost like a chant, as if saying it enough times might call her back. The music is the whole point: the rhymes chime softly, the rhythm sways, and the poem builds toward that unforgettable close, where the speaker lies each night in her tomb by the sea. It is a strange, tender image, love that will not observe the boundary of death. Beneath the fairy-tale trappings, the poem is really about how loss reorganizes a person's whole world, until even jealous angels and cold winds seem like part of the story. That mix of gentleness and obsession is why it still lands: it dresses grief in music, making sorrow feel almost bearable, even beautiful.

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