| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 234. Lenore |
| | | By Edgar Allan Poe |
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| 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 nevermore! | |
| See, on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! | |
| Come, let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung: | 5 |
| An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young, | |
| A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young. | |
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| “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 | 10 |
| By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue | |
| That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?” | |
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| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | |
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| “Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven— | 20 |
| From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven— | |
| From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven! | |
| Let no bell toll, then,—lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth, | |
| Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnëd Earth! | |
| And I!—to-night my heart is light!—no dirge will I upraise, | 25 |
| But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!” | |
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