"
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF FIRST STANZA OF ANNABEL LEE]
His most beautiful poem, _Annabel Lee_, is the dirge written for his wife,
and it is the one great poem in which he sounds this note of lasting
triumph:--
"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."
A few of his great poems, like _Israfel_ and _The Bells_, do not sing of
death, but most of them make us feel the presence of the great Shadow. The
following lines show that it would be wrong to say, as some do, that his
thoughts never pass beyond it:--
"And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams--
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams."
[Footnote: _To One in Paradise_.]
It would be difficult to name a poet of any race or age who has surpassed
Poe in exquisite melody. His liquid notes soften the harshness of death. No
matter what his theme, his verse has something of the quality which he
ascribes to the fair Ligeia:--
"Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run.
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