The Ghosts of Edgar Allen Poe and Elmira Shelton

Barker:

Step right up! See a ghost you know!
Mr. Edgar Allen Poe.
He hovers behind his would-be bride
who doesn’t notice he’s at her side.

J.B. as Poe hovers around Stefani.

Midway Boss: It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea,
that a maiden there lived whom you may know

Elmira: 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.

Midway Boss: But they loved with a love that was more than love
Poe and Annabel Lee.

Elmira: It wasn’t a kingdom by the sea,
it was here, by the river.
I didn’t die particularly young either.
I’m shut up here by the river Edgar.
I can’t get to you, I can’t ever
be in your arms, there was so much harm done.
When you died I was one of the few who knew
what had happened to you.

Barker: They said he’d ruin your reputation.
That’s why your brother’s hated him.

Elmira: Sometimes I felt like I did too.
But I never did, I never did.
I couldn’t do anything but love him, it
is hard to wait so long. It’s hard to be alone.
Do you know what it’s like to be alone?
Not only your heart but your soul
never gets over it.

Barker: But your love was stronger
by far than the love
of those who were older than you,
of many far wiser than you.

Sound waves

Elmira: And neither the angels in heaven above,
nor the demons down under the sea.
Can ever dissever his soul from the soul
of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

But, in death, I’ve kept us apart
because I died without forgiveness in my heart.
My brother’s killed him. I couldn’t turn them in.
I’m damned. I died in mortal sin.

Hands soul to the Devil

It all came too late. Fate made it I, not he
who walks by a tomb beside the sea.

End waves.

Midway Boss: The angels, not half so happy in heaven
went envying her and me.
That was the reason, as all men know in this kingdom by the sea
that the wind came out of a cloud by night
chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

Elmira: It’s hard to be alive but harder to be here.
I’ve forgotten how to dream.

Sound scream

I’ve grown insensitive to screams.
There isn’t any sleep here.
The place is full of fear.
You see how he loved me so.
How I loved back, you’ll never know.
I made up my mind to forget,
to put it in a box and bury it.

Sound waves

Elmira: But the moon never beams without bringing him dreams
of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
And the stars never rise but he sees the bright eyes
of his darling, his darling, his life and his bride;
in my sepulcher by the sea.
in my tomb by the sounding sea.

Start cello

Midway Boss: And thus the sad soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonley,
haunted by ill angels only.