Tag: Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee I

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This post is going to be part of a series based on the love story of Edgar Allan Poe‘s poem “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.

Than to love and be loved by me…

The words roll around in my mind, marbles on a marble floor.

I stand alone on a grassy hill, watching the gray clouds reflected in greenish water.  A storm is coming.  The ocean churns and froths beneath my empty stare, bubbling up like pus from a great wound.  But all I can think about is my heart, lying in the tomb.  Cold, lonely, lost.

My Annabel is gone.

Sweet Annabel Lee, my first, my only love.

I had never loved God or His angels.  Even as a boy I was ever skeptical of the mercy and kindness others painted Him with.  But I have never hated those divinities more than I do at this very moment.

Those jealous seraphs killed my beloved, and God Almighty allowed it to happen.  I feel myself shaking with rage and grief.

Closing my eyes, I think back to the day I met Annabel.

I had been playing at the beach, frolicking gaily at the shore just beyond the reach of the waves.  The sky was vivid lapis lazuli, the breeze, light and sweet.  I do not remember the water being particularly warm, but it was clean and clear, refreshing.  The dry sand sparkled white and the wet sand was soft gold, silky and fine.  Gulls cried, their voices carried across the beach by the breeze, breaking sharply in my ear.  Waves rolled, the low, melodious hiss of the surf soothed the birds’ shrill shrieks.

I was perhaps one and ten years.  By my mother’s accounts, I was a handsome boy.  She loved to run her fingers though my wavy blond hair and tousle it gently.  My skin was barely three shades lighter than honey, but still fair and unmarked.  However, what people first noticed were my eyes.  Large and uncannily bright, they were the deep blue of a summer ocean.

I had just scooped up a handful of sand when a shadow fell over my head.  Annoyed that this new obstacle was blocking the sun’s warmth, I looked up.

Probably appearing rather ridiculous, I shielded my eyes with one sandy arm and squinted, opening my mouth and cocking my head to the left.  What I saw slackened my jaw and made my arm drop like a stone.

A girl about my age stood in front of me.  The waves tugged at her long, pale pink dress, twisting it around her ankles, bits of white foam caught in the hem.  Long dark hair, locks of chestnut laced with amber, danced around a heart-shaped face.  Her magnolia white skin held the faintest flush across her cheekbones.  Lips, the dewy fresh color of roses, slightly parted, revealed pearly white teeth.  Luminescent eyes started down at me.  The incredible green of gemstones, they reminded me of my mother’s emeralds or the exotic lumps of jade she kept locked in a special velvet box.  Dark, curling lashes ringed the eyes and cast shadows down on her face like the silhouette of delicate black lace.

She knelt before me and sat with a grace I hadn’t thought a girl her age capable of.

“May I join you?” She asked, her voice soft and clear as a crystal bell.

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Nonsense Poems

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Here are some of my favorite nonsense poems!

These photos are not mine.

“And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.”

-Section of “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

Click the photo to see Johnny Depp recite “Jabberwocky” as the Mad Hatter

Raise your hand if you remember this poem from Tim Burton‘s 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland.  It sounded wonderful in Johnny Depp’s gravely, low Mad Hatter voice, his eyes burning emerald and hair of bright sienna.

“There was never a sound beside the wood but one, 
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. 
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; 
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, 
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound 
And that was why it whispered and did not speak. 
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, 
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: 
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak 
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, 
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers 
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. 
The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows. 
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.”

–“Mowing” by Robert Frost

I had to memorize this poem for my freshman English class in high school.  It struck me as strange and beautiful.  Though much time has passed since my recitation, the words have never left me and often when I am running in the heat or enduring some unpleasantry, they come floating back, soft and haunting.

“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore –
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore –
Nameless here for evermore.”

-Section of “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe

I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen and I worked with a guy who could recite “The Raven” in its entirety.  If you know this poem, you will know that is remarkable.  If not, click the link above and see just how LOOONNNGGG this poem really is.  I read a series called Nightworld by Ljane Smith and one of the books in the series is called “Witchlight.”  There is a character in the story named Iliana Harman who is said to be very beautiful.  An artist creates portraits of the characters for Ms. Smith’s website and the depiction of Iliana seems like the perfect face for the mysterious Lenore.

Portrait of Iliana Harman by Jan Sovak

“Let us go then, you and I,
To the Tomb of Ligeia, bye and bye,
Let us go to the Kingdom by the Sea,
The fish and chip shop of Annabelle Lee.
Let us go to the costal laundrette run by Lenore,
Let us throw open the windows and the door,
Dispel the gloom and evict the black cat,
Make a monkey of the ape asleep upon the mat.
Let us drink a draught of Hemlock at the House of Usher,
Where the décor is like the unquiet tomb, only plusher,
Let us imbibe at the Tell Tale Heart,
Let the parrots sing and the ravens play their part.
Alas, alas, M. Valdemar has come and I am at the door,
And I hear a melancholy chorus of black birds crying, Nevermore.”

-“The Love Song of Edgar Allen Poe” by Max Scratchmann

I thought this little poem amusing if not only for referencing two of my favorite poems (“The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”) and a few excellent short stories but it is also quite clever and, to my standards, nonsensical.

Note: He does spell Annabel Lee differently than Poe.

Annabel Lee