Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee,

¶ … Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee," William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130," and Richard Burns' "A Red, Red Rose." Images of nature are often used to describe the depths of love. Poets near and far lean upon the element of nature because nature is beautiful, long-lasting, and always surrounds us in one form or another.

Three poems that illustrate the incorporation of nature to emphasize the depths of love are Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee," William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130," and Richard Burns' "A Red, Red Rose." While each of these poets utilizes the technique of nature imagery in different ways, each poet successfully expresses his love through nature imagery. Through images of the sea and heaven, Poe allows us to see the loftiness and not-of-this-world aspect of his love.

Shakespeare uses nature in almost the opposite way - but admitting his lover does not have beauty like nature only demonstrates the true depth of his love. Burns, on the other hand, brings us back to nature by comparing his love to seas gone dry and rocks melting away. In other words, he uses instances in nature that can never happen to illustrate the depth and width of his love. Love is best described by elements of nature that grab our attention and make us think.

In the poem "Annabel Lee," Edgar Allan Poe captures the mystery of love with the mystic images of heaven and the sea. For example, he begins his poem by describing a maiden who lived "In a kingdom by the sea" (Poe 2). This maiden is his lover, Annabel Lee, a woman that the poet believed was too good to grace the earth. In fact, their love is one that is not of this earth.

For example, we read: Neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. (Annabel Lee 30-3) These lines illustrate how the poet uses nature imagery to describe every aspect of his love. He is quite comfortable referring to the angels above and the demons below to make his point. The sea is significant in that when the poet mentons Annabel Lee's death, he does so with images of nature.

For example, he tells us, "The wind came out of the cloud by night,/Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee" (25-6). Even through his lover's death, thoughts of nature seem to pervade the poet's thoughts and actions. In Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130," we also see images of nature, although in a very different way. This poem is interesting in that the poet uses humor along with images of nature to illustrate his point. For example, the poet tells us that his lover's eyes are "not at all like the sun" (Shakespeare 1).

In addition, her skin is not white like snow. Furthermore, using more humor to make his point, he goes on to say that he knows very well that red roses are lovely and his lover has "no such roses in her cheeks" (6). While this poem seems like a slam on his lover's beauty, the poet is actually pointing out the power of his love with his unusual comparisons.

In "A Red, Red Rose," Robert Burns expresses the same type of sentiment as Poe does in that love is beautiful like things of nature. He wants his lover to know how much he loves her as well as be aware of how deep in love he is. The best way to express this is to use nature imagery and the poet uses beautiful imagery to express his feelings. For example, he writes that his love is like the "melodie/That's sweetly played in time" (Burns 3-4).

He expresses the depth of his love by telling his lover that his love will endure even when the "a' the seas gang dry" (8) and the "rocks melt with the sun" (10). He even tells his lover that he will come to see her even if it were "ten thousand (16) miles to see her. We have often heard.