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, "Nevermore." "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, "Nevermore." 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 lamplight 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-nevermore! LENORE. Ah, broken is the golden bowl!-the spirit flown forever! 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! 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?" Peccavimus! But rave not thus, and let a Sab bath song Go 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 debonair, that now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes The 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 pæan 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 into the Heaven, From grief and groan to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.' THE BELLS. I. Hear the sledges with the bells Silver bells! [tells! What a world of merriment their melody fore In the icy air of night! In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinabulation that so musically wells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. II. Hear the mellow wedding bells Golden bells! [tells! What a world of happiness their harmony fore Through the balmy air of night What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! How it tells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! III. Hear the loud alarum bells Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, shriek, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, And a resolute endeavor By the side of the pale-faced moon. What a tale their terror tells |