The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary

While I pondered weak and weary

Over quaint and curious forgotten lore

While I nodded nearly napping

Suddenly there came a tapping

As of some one gently rapping

At my chamber door

'Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my door

Only this and nothing more

As I remember, it was in a bleak December

Dying embers roared their ghosts upon the floor

Eagerly I wished the morrow

Fainly I had sought to borrow

From my books of sorrow

All the lost Lenore

She was a maiden fair that ages name Lenore

Nameless here forevermore

As I opened up the shutter

There was a flutter

And in came a raven from days of yore

He flew past so fast

Never stopped or stayed

He perched above my chamber door

On a bust of Pallas

There before

Perched and sat and nothing more

I asked his name and why he was there

Bird or beast transfixed in stare

Ghostly and grim from nightly sure

"Who is thy master, peace or war?"

He sat in silence and I sat in awe

Then he spoke one word he said

"Nevermore"

Are you a devil sent from hell?

Or are you a prophet from God-fred's tale?

For I am lost within my grief

For my lost love I get final relief

But the gaunt and ominous bird above my door

Sat and croaked the same word

"Nevermore"

Take your black plume and leave my room

Take your beak out from my heart

Leave my loneliness unbroken

Let me grieve for my Lenore

Still he sat upon the door and only called "Nevermore"

And the raven never flitting

Still is sitting still sitting

On a bust of Pallas above my chamber door

His eyes are all the seeming

Of a demon that is dreaming

And the lamplight throws his shadow on the floor