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 in Heaven
Coveted her and me.
  
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wing blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
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 the sepulcher there by the sea--
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

So, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath
And the soul wears out the breast
And a heart must pause to breathe
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving
And the day returns too soon,
Yet, we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, –
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, – mud from a muddy spring, –
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, –
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, –
An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, –
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless – a book sealed;

A Senate, – Time’s worst statute unrepealed, –
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.