Lenore Lyrics

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!

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 innocent 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 so 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 Pæan of old days!

"Let no bell toll!--lest her sweet soul amid its hallowed mirth

"Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnéd 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"