Time for action – centering verses

Let's reuse the fragment of the poem "Annabel Lee". This time we shall center all verses:

1. Create a document containing these lines:

   \documentclass{article}
   \usepackage{url}
   \begin{document}
   \noindent This is the beginning of a poem
   by Edgar Allan Poe:
   \begin{center}
       \emph{Annabel Lee}
   \end{center}
   \begin{center}
       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
   \end{center}
   The complete poem can be read on
   \url{http://www.online-literature.com/poe/576/}.
   \end{document}

2. Typeset and see the output:

   

What just happened?

We began with \noindent avoiding the paragraph indentation. \begin{center} started the center environment. It begins a new paragraph, leaving some space to the preceding text. \end{center} ended this environment. We used the environment twice. In the second one, we inserted \\ to end the verses.

After the center environment ended, some space followed...