LENORE

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the kengele toll ! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river,
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear ? Weep now au nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid jeneza, 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 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
kwa you- kwa yours, the evil eye, kwa yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young ?"

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,
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 ! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven
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 kengele 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 moyo is light ! No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the Angel on her flight with a Paean of old days !"