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!”