Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore;
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art
sure, no craven;
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore,
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s Plutonian shore?”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer, little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—­
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door

                With such a name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour;
Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered,
Till I scarcely more than muttered—­“Other friends have flown before,
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.” 

                Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”

Startled by 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 this melancholy burden bore—­

                Of ‘Never, nevermore,’”

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 into fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—­
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

Thus 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, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls twinkled on the tufted floor. 
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—­by these angels He
hath sent thee
Respite—­respite and nepenthe from my memories of Lenore! 
Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”