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[[n]]
AH, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
[[n]]
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! [page 10:]
5
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.
“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!
10
[[n]]
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?”
[[n]]
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
15
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride:
[[n]]
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, [page 11:]
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes;
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.
20
[[n]]
“Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven —
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven —
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven!
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!
25
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!”
[The following notes appear at the bottom of page 9:]
* Lenore is perhaps the best example of Poe's success in amending his verses by constant experiment, as well as of his pertinacity in clinging to a subject that suited him. We have already seen that he thought the death of a beautiful young woman the most poetic of all themes, so we are not surprised to find the nucleus of Lenore in the stanzas entitled A Pæan, first published in the collection of 1831. Lenore itself appeared in the Pioneer for February, 1843. The text here given follows the Lorimer Graham copy of the edition of 1845, which contains marginal corrections in Poe's hand. For a comparison of the various readings see Works, X, pp. 166-170. The poem has long been popular and well represents Poe's use of poetic artifices.
1. Cf. Ecclesiastes xii. 6: “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken.”
2. The Styx (that is, the abhorred), the principal river of Hades.
[The following notes appear at the bottom of page 10:]
10. The student should consult some good dictionary as to the meaning of the various poetical and musical terms here used.
13. Peccavimus, literally, ‘* We have sinned.” The singular, “ peccavi,” is frequently found.
17. Debonair, of gentle mien, — from the Old French de bon aire.
“So buxom, blithe, and debonair.”
MILTON, L’Allegro
[The following note appears at the bottom of page 11:]
20. The verses of this stanza were considerably transposed and improved by Poe, and so the whole differs from the text of 1845, which is usually given.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - WPT97, 1897 and 1898] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Editions - Lenore (W. P. Trent, 1897 and 1898)