Lenore complains to God how he has treated her unfairly, because her fiancé William still hasn't returned from the war. Things start to get eerie when he finally comes back.

The publication of the ballad dates to a time when philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder suggested, that in order to create a German literary tradition they should collect folk songs from the lower classes. Wikipedia has a good overview of the background, so I won't go into more detail on that. I think it's interesting that this has variations in other cultures. In Finland for example the elements have been changed into a snowy landscape and a sled, but the basic idea is the same. Like I mentioned in my review of the collection of Finnish ghost stories, this seems very familiar to me. I'm not sure if it's because I've read a similar story when I was a child, or if there are some universal aspects to it, but it's entertaining nevertheless.

Since I don't know enough German, I can't say anything about Rossetti's translation, but apparently it's considered the most faithful one. The ending was wonderfully creepy, but it also reminded me a bit of Hugo Simberg, especially his painting The Garden of Death. It's not a big surprise that Lenore was a big inspiration for Romantic writers. It's a short ballad, but has a lot of great material whose echoes can be seen and felt in all Romantic and at some level in Gothic and horror literature. It has been said to have influenced the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Matthew Gregory Lewis, John Keats and William Wordsworth. Bram Stoker famously cited the line "The dead travel fast" in Dracula. I would actually say that this is a must read for all horror and Romantic aficianados, even if only to see where it all started.