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!
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.
"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!
"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?"
Peccavimus;
but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God
so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet
Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee
wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—
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.
"Avaunt!
to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
"But
waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!
"Let no
bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
"Should
catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.
"To
friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—
"From
Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—
"From
grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."
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