For your Halloween reading enjoyment, of my favorite poems—and the last published by Edgar Allan Poe:

ANNABEL LEE.

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 wingëd 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.

The Raven, of course, is more famous, but I think this one is hauntingly beautiful ... until you reach the last few lines and realize what’s going on. Then it’s hauntingly creepy.

Vampire Head Cover

Sports Illustrated has a list of the most terrifying course names: Purgatory Golf Club, The Devil’s Claw, The Blue Monster, Hell’s Point, Deep Cliff, Shark River, Devil’s Lake (I’ve played this one), The Monster Course, and the Bigfoot Golf and Country Club.

You can read more about the courses here.

I wrote about Devil’s Lake here as a part of my Halloween Week celebration a couple of years ago.

Skull Headcover

Frankenstein Head Cover

A pet peeve of mine is that people refer to Frankenstein’s monster as “Frankenstein,” or worse, “Frankie.” The educated reader knows that Frankenstein is the name of the Doctor in Mary Shelley’s novel. The monster is referred to throughout as the creature, or the being. At one point in Frankenstein, the creature, when addressing Dr. Frankenstein, refers to himself as “the Adam of your labors,” which has given some credence to the idea that the otherwise unnamed creature may have been named Adam.