I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the wingéd seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we,

Of many far wiser than we;

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-Poe.

FROM "THE BELLS"

I

"Hear the sledges with the bells,

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

-Poe.

XXVIII

OTHER SOUTHERN WRITERS

POE's name is, thus far, the greatest in Southern literature, and in the colouring of his tales and the music of his verse, he shows many touches of the Southland. His life, however, seems to relate itself more to the North - but as we have said, he stands apart from any group. Before considering other individual lives, we look briefly at the conditions that existed in the South before the Civil War.

There was no public school system; the wealthy employed tutors, or sent their children abroad to be educated. There were no great publishing-houses; no literary centres as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Concord. Puritanism and Transcendentalism were almost unknown. The hum of the mill and the factory was not often heard and there was little commercialism. The hospitable plantation mansion was presided over by the cordial but aristocratic gentleman. Its spirit imitated that of English rural life, and the study of English manners and English literature was most popular.

The pride of the South lay in her long line of orators and statesmen, and the famous documents and addresses that she had given to the Union in its

formative period. Virginia laid stress upon being "The Mother of Presidents." So law and oratory and politics belonged to Southern traditions, rather than American literature, which was somewhat ignored, being considered trashy. One subject, however, was of such vital import that it was constantly discussed, and this was the institution of slavery. It came increasingly to the fore; the Northerners declaimed against it so fiercely that the Southerners must needs wonder what they would better do with it; and we have spoken in a previous chapter of the oratory to which this gave rise.

But there were a few writers of note on other subjects; among them, John Pendleton Kennedy (17951870), a brilliant statesman and one of our earliest novelists, who, in his books, happily reproduced an era that has gone. In his "Horse-shoe Robinson," he enlarges on the traditions of South Carolina and Revolutionary days; while his "Swallow Barn" photographs the customs of a Virginia plantation, at the end of the eighteenth century. “The aristocratic old edifice sets like a brooding-hen, on the Southern bank of the James River"- and in typical Southern style. Kennedy describes as follows the master's dress as he rides to the court-house: —

"He is then apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue broadcloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an unusual amount of plaited ruffles strutting through the folds of a Marseilles