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THE ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell —
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.
But he spoke to re-assure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o’re me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
(Thinking him dead D’Elormie),
“Oh, I am happy now!”
And thus the words were spoken;
And this the plighted vow; [page 82:]
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Here is a ring as token
That I am happy now!
Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken, —
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.
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Notes:
In this text, Harrison adopts the changes Poe made in the J. L. Graham copy of The Raven and Other Poems, but he does so in a questionable way. He acknowledges the change to the fourth stanza with the lines Poe adds at the bottom of page 7. He assumes, however, that Poe intended to strike out the remaining two lines of that stanza, which in the Raven and Other Poems appear at the top of the subsequent page, even though Poe does not strike out these lines. Harrison, therefore, replaces the last two lines of that stanza. (In so doing, Harrison follows Woodberry and Stedman.) T. O. Mabbott instead interprets the new lines as additions, and retains the old lines as well. Harrison assumes that these lines are absolute equivalents, with one set merely repeating the other, while Mabbott assumes that the echoing effect of all of the lines emphasizes their meaning.
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[S:0 - JAH07, 1902] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (J. A. Harrison) (Bridal Ballad)