I’m a little bit obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe. I love everything about his poems and his stories, because of his gothic tones. I might seem bright and sunny most of the time, but there’s a huge part of me that’s fascinated by what some would call morbid things. I remember watching the film version of “The Tell-Tale Heart” in sixth grade and I was so incredibly creeped out by it, but it was so alluring at the same time. All of my friends thought I was crazy, but well, look who grew up to be the English major.
School also just started, so I’m kind of re-obsessed with poems and short stories, because that’s all we’re working on in my senior seminar.
This is one of my favorite poems by Poe, and it’s the reason Lauren’s middle name in Ignite is Annabelle, and the reason why Dean is so focused on that name. There’s more to it than that, but if I can ever finish it, you can read it and find out why!
“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
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 wingèd 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 kinsmen 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 her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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