"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 10
By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"
_Peccanimus_; 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, 15
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 friends below, the indignant ghost is riven-- 20
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 bell toll, then,--lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damn?©d Earth!
And I!--to-night my heart is light!--No dirge will I upraise, 25
But waft the angel on her flight with a P?¦an of old days."
THE VALLEY OF UNREST
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers, 5
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
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