A poem by Edgar Allan Poe on his birthday

• Annabel Lee
• 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 kinsman 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 the sepulchre there by the sea,
• In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, fiction writer, editor and literary critic. His name is almost synonymous with the macabre because of the tales which he wrote in that genre. He is also considered the progenitor of the detective story and an early pioneer in the science fiction story. Although born in Boston, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, when he was two years old. His life was brief, but his output was voluminous — and significant both for American and world literature. He shares a birthday, January 19, with another tragic figure of the south, Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Army of the Confederacy, who was born two years before Poe.