LENORE

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!читать дальше
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 ye 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?»

_Peccauimus_: — yet rave not thus! but 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! — avaunt! to friends from fiends the
indignant ghost is riven -
From Hell unto a high estate within the utmost
Heaven -
From moan 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 damned Earth!
And I — tonight my heart is light: — no dirge will
I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean
of old days!»

(1844-1849)