Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/175

 were out by the sea in a gray stone sepulcher I should stay there near you, in the night-tide and the day-tide. You would be there—and my heart would set in your direction still."

"More than it had set before," said my friend Annabel Lee. "For everything escheats to the sea at last. Those persons," said my friend Annabel Lee, "who have measures of sorrow which can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all. Those measures of sorrow will serve them well and will stand them in good stead on days when all other things desert them. If a measure of sorrow is joined with the sea it belongs to the sea—and the sea is always there.

"The sea," said my friend Annabel Lee, "is like a letter from some one whom you have written to after a long silence, who you thought might be dead.

"The sea is the measure of sorrow, and