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 in 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.

Aн, 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 Sabbath 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 hairupon her eyes.

The death

"Avaunt to-night my heart is light.
No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight
With a Pean 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 damnèd Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below,
The indignant ghost is riven-
From Hell unto a high estate

Far up within the Heaven

From grief and groan to a golden throne Beside the King of Heaven."