Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered,
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there
came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my
chamber door
"Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my
chamber door
Only this and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak
December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost
upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;-vainly I had sought
to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for
the lost Lenore
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels
name Lenore
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain
Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never
felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I
stood repeating...