On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, “Never more." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, Of 'Never-never more.'" But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Never more." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er She shall press, ah, never more! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch!" I cried, "thy god hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh, quaff, this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Never more!" "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven "Never more." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil! By that heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore," Quoth the Raven, "Never more." "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting "Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Never more." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted-never more? Lenore. Aн, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever! Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or never more! See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come! let the burial rite be read-the funeral song be sung! ง An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young. "Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, and hated her for her pride, And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her― that she died! How shall the ritual, then, be read?-the requiem how be sung By you-by yours, the evil eye-by yours, the slanderous tongue. That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?" Go Peccavimus! but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong! The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside, Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride For her, the fair and debonnair, that now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyesThe life still there upon her hair-the death upon her eyes. "Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a pan of old days! Let no bell toll!-lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven From hell unto a high estate far up within the heavenFrom grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven." HEAR the sledges with the What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinabulation that so musically swells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. |