Lenore by Edgar Allan Poe

This is the poem mentioned in the northwest corner of the puzzle Colonization by Robert W. Harris.

This is the final version published in 1843, not the original version published in 1831. Furthermore, the 1938 Poe anthology at my local library has the order of some of the lines in the last stanza as different than what I find on the intarwebz.

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 nevermore!
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 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?”

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 – to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!
Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnèd Earth!
To friends above, 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!

The mourners tell Guy de Vere, Lenore’s fiancee, to weep now, or nevermore. The Raven was written in 1845, so the existence of nevermore in this poem is strictly coincidental. Some of the lines have internal rhymes, like lines 2, 3 and 4. So there are lines that rhyme, and rhymes within lines, but not always. There are rhythms, and rhythms within rhythms. Guy de Vere says the other mourners were fair-weather friends who were glad she died. The mourners said “Well, yeah, but you’re not sad because she’s dead, you’re sad because you didn’t get to marry her! Neener neener neener!” And Guy de Vere says, “I’m not going to be sad, I’m going to be happy that she’s going to Heaven. In fact, I bet she gets a front-row seat!”