A Night-Piece, poem by William Wordsworth:

A Night-Piece

Poem by William Wordsworth.

The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground – from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up – the clouds are split
Asunder, – and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not! – the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent; – still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

Recommended reading:

William Wordsworth Selected Poems

Video by Jack Kost.
2025.

Photograph:

Night Light (2023), by Jack Kost.

Sound effect credit:

Wind Gusts Late Autumn

by freesound_community
from Pixabay.

The Praying Mantis, poem by Ogden Nash:

The Praying Mantis

Poem by Ogden Nash.

From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
glimpse the grin, green metal mug
at masks the pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.

Recommended reading:

The Best of Ogden Nash
548 Favorite Poems from America's Laureate of Light Verse

Video by Jack Kost.
2025.

Praying Mantis (2019)
photographs by Jack Kost.

Sound effect credit:

Sounds of Summer

by freesound_community
from Pixabay.

The Blue Ridge, poem by Harriet Monroe:

The Blue Ridge

Poem by Harriet Monroe.

Still and calm,
In purple robes of kings,
The low-lying mountains sleep at the edge of the world.
The forests cover them like mantles;
Day and night
Rise and fall over them like the wash of waves.
Asleep, they reign.
Silent, they say all.
Hush me, O slumbering mountains –
Send me dreams.

Harriet Monroe

December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936

Video by Jack Kost
2025

Blue Ridge Mountains (2019)
Photographs by Jack Kost.

Sound effect credit:
Forest wind and birds
by freesound_community
from Pixabay.

Recommended reading - Dante’s Inferno, poem by Dante Alighieri (1321):

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso

By Dante Alighieri.

Translated by John Ciardi.

Published by Berkley.

Originally published 1321.

This edition published 2003.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0451208633

ISBN-13: 978-0451208637

Description:

The authoritative translations of The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso – together in one volume.

Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise – the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

Now, for the first time, John Ciardi’s brilliant and authoritative translations of Dante’s three soaring canticles – The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso – have been gathered together in a single volume. Crystallizing the power and beauty inherent in the great poet’s immortal conception of the aspiring soul, The Divine Comedy is a dazzling work of sublime truth and mystical intensity.

Dante's Inferno: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

By Dante Alighieri.

Illustrated by Paul Brizzi and Gaëtan Brizzi.

Published by Harry N. Abrams.

Published 2024.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 1419776754

ISBN-13: 978-1419776755

Description:

Acclaimed animators Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi adapt Dante’s literary classic Inferno in the sweeping, dramatic style that brought The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia 2000 to life.

Literary aficionados will appreciate this decadent graphic novel adaptation, which does not seek to sand down the source material. Likewise, adults whose imaginations were fueled by films like Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame as children, which the Brizzi brothers animated sequences for, will be swept up in this lushly illustrated adult fable, unfettered by the demands of corporate animation studios.

Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi make this famously dense literary classic accessible without distorting it and betraying the spirit of the Italian genius. They deftly translate it into comics while taking care to preserve the heart of the story: a taste for excess, dramatic tension, and the inevitable darkness of the subject matter.

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante crosses the nine circles of Hell to find his beloved, Beatrice, in Paradise. Along the way, he must recognize and reject each of the incarnations of sin. In each circle of Hell, Dante confronts both sinners and demons, from Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, and Paris, whose loves were famously their downfall, to the Greek Furies and Medusa, to heretics like Epicurus, whose teachings claimed that the soul died with the body, now forced to writhe in a flaming tomb for eternity.

Each layer of Hell reveals monsters, gods, historical and mythological kings, philosophers, queens, and hordes of the miserable, faceless damned, all culminating in a confrontation with Lucifer himself.

Dogwood Blossoms, poem by George Marion McClellan:

Dogwood Blossoms

Poem by George Marion McClellan.

To dreamy languors and the violet mist
Of early Spring, the deep sequestered vale
Gives first her paling-blue Miamimist,
Where blithely pours the cuckoo’s annual tale
Of Summer promises and tender green,
Of a new life and beauty yet unseen.
The forest trees have yet a sighing mouth,
Where dying winds of March their branches swing,
While upward from the dreamy, sunny South,
A hand invisible leads on the Spring.
His rounds from bloom to bloom the bee begins
With flying song, and cowslip wine he sups,
Where to the warm and passing southern winds,
Azaleas gently swing their yellow cups.
Soon everywhere, with glory through and through,
The fields will spread with every brilliant hue.
But high o’er all the early floral train,
Where softness all the arching sky resumes,
The dogwood dancing to the winds’ refrain,
In stainless glory spreads its snowy blooms.

Recommended reading:

Poems by George Marion McClellan.

Video by Jack Kost.
2025.

Dogwood Blossom photographs by Jack Kost.

Sound effect credit:

Forest wind and birds

by freesound_community

from Pixabay.

The Long Road, poem by John Oxenham:

The Long Road

Poem by John Oxenham.

Long the road,
    Till Love came down it!
Dark the life,
    Till Love did crown it!
Dark the life,
    And long the road,
Till Love came
    To share the load!
For the touch
    Of Love transfigures
All the road
    And all its rigours.
Life and Death,
Love’s touch transfigures.
Life and Death
    And all that lies
In between,
Love sanctifies.
Once the heavenly spark is lighted,
Once in love two hearts united,
Nevermore
    Shall aught that was be
As before.

Recommended reading:

Bees in Amber: A Little Book of Thoughtful Verse

by John Oxenham.

Picture:

The Road Ahead (2019)

By Jack Kost

Video by Jack Kost
2025

Music credit:
Softer Love
By Clavier-Music
From Pixabay

The Last Word of a Bluebird, poem by Robert Frost:

The Last Word of a Bluebird

Poem by Robert Frost.

As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, “Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax –
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing.”

Recommended reading:

Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays

Video by Jack Kost
2025

Music credit:

Cold October – Soft Piano Music
By Clavier-Music
From Pixabay

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe:

The Raven

Poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
 
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 visitor,” 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,
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is, and nothing more.”
 
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you” – here I opened wide the door;
Darkness there, and nothing more.
 
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” –
Merely this, and nothing more.
 
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore –
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;
‘Tis the wind and nothing more.”
 
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door –
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door –
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
 
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 marveled 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 blest with seeing bird above his chamber door –
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
 
But the raven, sitting lonely on the 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 at 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 that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never – nevermore’.”
 
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy 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 unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore –
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
 
This 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 lamplight gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
 
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
 
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! –
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted –
On this home by horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore –
Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
 
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil – prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –
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!
 
Recommended reading:

Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Video by Jack Kost

2025


Sound Effects credits:

Eerie Ambience

Raven Flyby

by freesound_community from Pixabay.

The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe:

The Sleeper

by Edgar Allan Poe
 
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by drop,
 
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
 
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
 
All Beauty sleeps! – and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right –
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
 
Laughingly through the lattice drop –
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully – so fearfully –
 
Above the closed and fringéd lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
 
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
 
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
 
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
 
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold –
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
 
And wingéd pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls
Of her grand family funerals –
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portals she hath thrown,
 
In childhood, many an idle stone –
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

Recommended reading:

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (1966)

Video by Jack Kost – 2025.

Photograph: Moon Over Trees (2024), by Jack Kost.

Wind Sound Effect by freesound_community from Pixabay.

Aurora is the effort:

Aurora is the effort

A poem by Emily Dickinson

Aurora is the effort
Of the Celestial Face
Unconsciousness of Perfectness
To simulate, to Us.

Recommended reading:

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960).
Edited by Thomas H. Johnson.

Pictures in video were taken during two events of the aurora borealis, visible from my home in 2024.

Video by Jack Kost.
2024.

Writing, a poem by Charles Bukowski:

Writing

a poem by Charles Bukowski

1991

Often it is the only thing between you and impossibility.

No drink, no woman's love, no wealth can match it.

Nothing can save you except writing.

It keeps the walls from falling.

The hordes from closing in.

It blasts the darkness.

Writing is the ultimate psychiatrist,

the kindliest god of all the gods.

Writing stalks death.

It knows no quit,

and writing laughs at itself, at pain.

It is the last expectation, the last explanation.

That's what it is.

Antigonish / The Man Who Wasn’t There, by William Hughes Mearns (1899):

Antigonish / The Man Who Wasn’t There,
by William Hughes Mearns (1899)
 
Poem Excerpt:
 
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away ...

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost:

The Road Not Taken.
By Robert Frost.
Published in 1916.
 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Robert Frost
(1874 – 1963)

Contribute a verse:

On the recent anniversary of what would have been the late-actor Robin Williams’ birthday, I was asked my favorite of his movies.
I’m a fan of much of his work, but of all his movies my favorite is Dead Poets Society (1989).
As a tribute, I quote this inspirational scene:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion.

And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

To quote from Whitman:

"O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?"

Answer: that you are here, that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

What will your verse be?

A Dream Within a Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe:

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
 

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe:

Originally published in 1845

This version published in: Richmond Semi – Weekly Examiner,

dated: September 25, 1849.

The Raven, illustrated by John Tenniel (1858)

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 someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," 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,

"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; –

This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you" – here I opened wide the door; –

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" –

Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore –

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; –

'Tis the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door –

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door –

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

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 marveled 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 name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the 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 at 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 that melancholy burden bore,

Of 'Never – nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy 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 unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore –

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore,

Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This 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 me thought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer,

Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee,

Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!  – prophet still, if bird or devil!  –

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted –

On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore –

Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!  – prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –

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 lamp – light 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!

The Raven, by Gustave Dore (1883)

 

In memory of Edgar Allan Poe.

January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849.