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SELECTIONS FROM EDGAR ALLAN POE
TO HELEN [1]
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicaean [2] barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.[3]
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, [4] from the regions which
Are Holy Land! [5]
ANNABEL LEE [6]
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea, [7]
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 winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.[8]
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 [9] came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.