Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
A Pæan
1How shall the burial rite be read?
2 The solemn song be sung?
3The requiem for the loveliest dead,
4 That ever died so young?
5Her friends are gazing on her,
6 And on her gaudy bier,
7And weep! — oh! to dishonor
8 Dead beauty with a tear!
9They loved her for her wealth —
10 And they hated her for her pride —
11But she grew in feeble health,
12 And they _love_ her — that she died.
13They tell me (while they speak
14 Of her "costly broider'd pall")
15That my voice is growing weak —
16 That I should not sing at all —
17Or that my tone should be
18 Tun'd to such solemn song
19So mournfully — so mournfully,
20 That the dead may feel no wrong.
21But she is gone above,
22 With young Hope at her side,
23And I am drunk with love
24 Of the dead, who is my bride. —
25Of the dead — dead who lies
26 All perfum'd there,
27With the death upon her eyes.
28 And the life upon her hair.
29Thus on the coffin loud and long
30 I strike — the murmur sent
31Through the gray chambers to my song,
32 Shall be the accompaniment.
33Thou diedst in thy life's June —
34 But thou didst not die too fair:
35Thou didst not die too soon,
36 Nor with too calm an air.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“A Pæan” by Edgar Allan Poe — quilloak.com/poems/a-p-an
Quick facts
- Poem
- A Pæan
- Poet
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Length
- 44 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Love, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 44 lines · 11 quatrains
- Line length
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849
- Source record
- PoetryDBA Pæan by edgar-allan-poe, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 965806f0fa46d4f5…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.