The Edgar Allan Poe poem that begins “Ah, broken is the golden bowl!” is “Lenore.”
The poem presents a funeral and a debate over how Lenore’s death should be mourned. Guy de Vere, her grieving fiancé, is challenged for failing to show sufficient sorrow, while the poem’s closing movement rejects a conventional dirge and imagines Lenore’s soul ascending to heaven. Its imagery combines death, ritual, bells, angels and the Stygian river of classical mythology.
“Lenore” has an unusual publication history. Poe first published an earlier poem called “A Pæan” in 1831. That version differed substantially from the later work, and the name Lenore was not added until the poem appeared under that title in 1843. Poe revised it several times, including a final version published in the Broadway Journal in 1845.
Readers often confuse “Lenore” with “The Raven,” which also features a dead woman named Lenore. They are separate poems, although both explore grief and the death of a beautiful woman.