Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/198

 mists a mile away, and wild geese honking—so that I know there are things in it and upon it a hundred times wilder and lonesomer than I. And it sends good ships driving against these great rocks, and dashes them to pieces, and human beings go down with them to rest for a thousand of years in the depths, so that I know it loves human beings well, and has need of them. In the forenoon of a day in July it melts my heart with its glad, warm sunshine and dazzles my eyes and fills me with comfort—and I know that life is a safe thing. When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better.

Thus I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, red castle by the side of the sea.

But neither is this my friend Annabel Lee. For she is more fascinating still, and her castle is even taller, and a deeper red—and more than all she is herself.