Annabel Lee
Like many other Poe poems including "The Raven", "Ulalume", and "To One in Paradise", "Annabel Lee" follows the theme of the death of a beautiful woman, which Poe called "the most poetical topic in the world". Like women in many other works by Poe, she is struck with illness and marries young. The poem focuses on an ideal love which is unusually strong. In fact, the narrator's actions show that he not only loves Annabel Lee, but he worships her, something he can only do after her death. The narrator admits that he and Annabel Lee were children when they fell in love, but his explanation that angels murdered her is in itself childish, suggesting he has failed to mature since then. His repetition of this assertion suggests he is trying to rationalize his own excessive feelings of loss.