A Yankee soldier stationed at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina fell in love with a beautiful southern girl from a wealthy Charleston family. They met in secret. The father forbid her seeing him She snuck out at night to meet him. The father found out and had her locked in her room with the windows boarded. She refused food left outside and wouldn’t respond to any of the servants at the door. The father said leave her alone she will come around. Finally after weeks of no response the father entered the room. The girl had died from yellow fever, bitten by a mosquito that had made it through the cracks in the boarded up window. The wealthy father had three graves dug in the local church graveyard. She was buried late at night with the other two graves just filled with dirt and unoccupied. No headstone or marking was placed so the soldier would never know which she was buried in. He found out and left flowers on all three. To this day one of the graves has an underground spring which pushes trickles of water above ground That is said to be the real grave with the tears of the soldier and his love still flowing. The soldier was Edgar Alan Poe. And that is one of the versions of the story of Annabel Lee.
Annabel Lee
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
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 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 wingèd 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.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
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.
Bttt.
5.56mm