40 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
40 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
1831
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LENORE
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by Edgar Allan Poe
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LENORE
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Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
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Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
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And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!
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See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
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Come! let the burial rite be read- the funeral song be sung!-
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An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
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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,
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And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her- that she died!
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How shall the ritual, then, be read?- the requiem how be sung
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By you- by yours, the evil eye,- by yours, the slanderous tongue
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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
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Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
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The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
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Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
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bride.
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For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
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The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
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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-
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From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
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From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
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Heaven!
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Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
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Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
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And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
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But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"
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-THE END-
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