Lenore

8"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

9And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her — that she died!

10How _shall_ the ritual, then, be read? — the requiem how be sung

11By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous tongue

12That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

13_Peccavimus;_ but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

14Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

15The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,

16Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride —

17For her, the fair and _débonnaire_, that now so lowly lies,

18The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes —

19The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.

20"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

21But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!

22Let _no_ bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

23Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.

24To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven —

25From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven —

26From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven."