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AH, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; —
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? — weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
[[v]]
Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! —
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
[[v]]
“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her — that she died!
[[v]]
How shall the ritual, then, be read? — the requiem how be sung
By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”
[[v]]
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong! [page 22:]
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride —
[[v]]
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes —
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.
[[v]]
“Avaunt! — avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven —
[[v]]
“From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven —
[[v]]
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven! —
[[v]]
Let no bell toll, then! — lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth! —
[[v]]
And I! — to-night my heart is light! — No dirge will I upraise
But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!”
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - JHW11, 1911] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Lenore (ed. J. H. Whitty, 1911)