“And the angels in heaven would count for very little in it,” said I.
“No, certainly not the angels in heaven,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“Nor the demons down under the sea?” I asked.
“I don’t know about them,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
I repeated:
“‘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 sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.’
The first lines,” said I, “are well-fitting. For you are like to the moon and stars, and they are like to you. You are with them in the shadow-way. And if you were out by the sea in a gray stone sepulcher I should stay there near you, in the night-tide and the day-tide. You would be there—and my heart would set in your direction still.”
“More than it had set before,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “For everything escheats to the sea at last. Those persons,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “who have measures of sorrow which can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all. Those measures of sorrow will serve them well and will stand them in good stead on days when all other things desert them. If a measure of sorrow is joined with the sea it belongs to the sea—and the sea is always there.
“The sea,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is like a letter from some one whom you have written to after a long silence, who you thought might be dead.