AND I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, tall castle by the side of the sea—a castle made of dull red granite that glows a gorgeous crimson in the light of the setting sun.
And all day long there is no sign of life about the dull red castle, and also the winds are low and the blue water is very quiet. Far down the shore are only a few gulls flying, and wild ducks riding on the waves.
There is nothing moving on the jagged rocks for miles about the red castle, but there are growing in crevices some wild green weeds that are full of fair sweet life. And all day the sky is pale blue.
The windows in the red castle are of thick, dark glass and are grated and mullioned and set about with iron. The look of these windows is rigid and bitter and it shuts out everything that is without.
The battlements of the castle are high and narrow and fearsome-looking and dark and very sullen. Were I upon the battlements I would gladly plunge off from them down upon the rocks, some hundreds of feet, and be dashed to pieces—or into the deep sea. But below there is a turret and a belfry, but no bell, and the turret is a sheltered and safe retreat looking out upon all. One who had not been content before in the world might be at last content within the turret of this tall, red castle by the side of the sea.
Away at the meeting of the sea and the sky there is a narrow line that is not pale blue like the sky nor dark blue like the sea, but is only pale thin air. And I look at it expecting to see—But in the bright daylight I never know what I expect to see in the line of thin air at the meeting of the pale and the dark.
And so then all day everything is dead quiet, and my friend Annabel Lee is a princess inside the red castle.
How fair a princess is my friend Annabel Lee!
I fancy her in a beautiful white gown embroidered with gold threads. The gown is long and narrow and fits closely about the waist, and trails on the ground. And upon the left forefinger of the princess a great old silver ring set with an unpolished turquoise.
The rooms inside the red castle are fit rooms for such a princess. They are dark and high and narrow, and are adorned with frescoes and wall-paintings, and the thick windows of dark glass shine with marvelous, myriad coloring where the light shows through. Before some of the windows bits of cut glass are hung, and these catch the sunbeams and straightway countless rainbows fall upon the gown and the hands and the hair of the princess.
When the sun sets a great bar of deep golden light falls from afar upon the red castle, and it becomes magnificent with crimson. The dark glass of the windows glows like old copper. The battlements are tipped with gold, and all is like a great flower that has but just bloomed.
After the sun has set and the crimson has faded once more from the red castle, and the copper from the windows, and before the light of day has gone, the sea and the sky take on different shades and different meanings, and the gulls and the wild ducks come up from far down the shore, and the rocks echo with their wild noises. The sky is full of flying cloud-racks and the water rises high and has crests of white foam.
But the line at the horizon looks still the same.
Then the princess in her white gown opens a door high up in the tall castle and comes out under the turret. She comes forward to the railing and leans upon it with her fair chin resting in her hand.
I see her there across a long stretch of dark water, her white frock gleaming in the pale light—so high up and all—and a multitude of thoughts come upon me.
The princess looks at the thin line of sky opposite her, and looks so steadfastly that I turn my eyes from her and look there also.
And now there are manifold scenes there.
There is a scene of a knight going forth to do battle, with his black charger and his shining steel armor. And he wears an orange plume in his helmet. His going is a brave thing. He is in the rising of his youth and strength. And for this reason I—and the princess on the turret—can see him falling gloriously in a fierce battle, with death in his veins, and the charger wandering off with no rider into the night. And the princess looks with envy upon one who can go forth and fall in battle.
There is a scene of a young woman in a small room working hard and persistently by a dim light at some exquisitely fine needlework upon an immense linen oblong. And her shoulders are bent and her eyes are strained and her hands are weary and her nerves shattered and crying out. But she does not leave off her work. She and her work are like an ant carrying away a desert grain by grain, and like one miserable person building up a pyramid, and like one counting all the stars. One does not know whose is the linen or why she works, or whether money will be given her for it. But one may know that verily she will have her reward. Such people working like that in small rooms, and all, with wearied nerves, always have their reward. And the princess on the turret looked out at the woman as if she with her linen and her needle were the fortunate one.
There is a scene of French Canadians cutting hay and raking it early in the summer afternoon—women and men. The day is so beautifully hot and the perfume of the grass is so sweet that a tall red castle by the side of the sea is the dreariest place of all. The princess looks out from her turret with desolate purple eyes. She looks at the ring upon her forefinger—and together with her I wonder why all people were not made French Canadians making hay in the fields. Over their heads is the air of the green French Canadian country; under their feet is the soft French Canadian hay. And they have appetites for their food.
There is a scene of a child playing in the mud under a green willow. She has a large pewter spoon to dip up great lumps of mud, and she takes up the lumps in her two hands and pats them and shapes them and lays them down in rows on a shingle. Water runs down through the meadow near by where she sits and she dips it up also in the spoon to thin out the mud. The rows of mud-cakes on the shingle are very neat and arranged with infinite care. The princess forgets to envy the child and her mud-cakes in the interest she takes in the making of them. Her face and her purple eyes even take on an indefinite look of contentment in that she is in the same world with so fit a thing.
Having looked long at the visions the princess takes her eyes from the line of thin sky and looks down into the tumbled dark water.
When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better than wild, dark water that is too vast to be measured and that is good for a thousand of years, and that contains yet as good fish as ever came out of it. It gives up pink shells upon the sand in the kindness of its heart, and it sends wild whistling gales up to the pinnacles of my red castle to sing for me and to tell me many stories. And it has wild winds wandering in and upon the high walls and caves along its rugged coast—and if I knew not that they were winds I would surely think them the voices of sea-maids singing—high, thin, piercing voices mingled with the sound of long, washing waves. And it gives out dreary lonesome cries—a loon calling in the night 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.