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rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sen
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathëd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven)

Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings,
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,

Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love's a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are

Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,

Best bard, because the wisest:
Merrily live, and long!

They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls

A pean from the bells;
And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells,
And he dances, and he yells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the pean of the bells,
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells —
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells:

To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

To the moaning and the groaning of the

So that her highborn kinsmen caine 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: