I Fell In Love With Melancholy

It Was Many And Many A Year Ago, In A Kingdom By The Sea, That A Maiden There Lived Whom You May Know By The Name Of Annabel Lee;-- And This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

I Was Forced To Fall Back Upon The Unsatisfactory Conclusion, That While, Beyond Doubt, There Are Combinations Of Very Simple Natural Objects Which Have The Power Of Thus Affecting Us, Still The Analysis Of This Power Lies Among Considerations Beyond Our Depth. It Was Possible, I Reflected, That A Mere Different Arrangement Of The Particulars Of The Scene, Of The Details Of The Picture, Would Be Sufficient To Modify, Or Perhaps To Annihilate Its Capacity For Sorrowful Impression.

But In The Expression Of The Countenance, Which Was Beaming All Over With Smiles, There Still Lurked (incomprehensible Anomalyl) That Fitful Strain Of Melancholy Which Will Ever Be Found Inseparable From The Perfection Of The Beautiful.

My Next Thought Concerned The Choice Of An Impression, Or Effect, To Be Conveyed: And Here I May As Well Observe That, Throughout The Construction, I Kept Steadily In View The Design.

In The Heaven's Above, The Angels, Whispering To One Another, Can Find, Among Their Burning Terms Of Love, None So Devotional As That Of 'mother.