Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

    I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

    1.
    O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
    Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
    Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

    Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
    Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
    Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

    The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
    Each like a corpse within its grave, until
    Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

    Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
    (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
    With living hues and odours plain and hill:

    Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
    Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

    2.
    Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
    Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
    Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

    Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
    On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
    Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

    Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
    Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
    The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

    Of the dying year, to which this closing night
    Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
    Vaulted with all thy congregated might

    Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
    Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

    3.
    Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
    The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
    Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

    Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
    And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
    Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

    All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
    So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
    For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

    Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
    The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
    The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

    Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
    And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

    4.
    If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
    If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
    A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

    The impulse of thy strength, only less free
    Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
    I were as in my boyhood, and could be

    The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
    As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
    Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

    As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
    Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
    I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

    A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
    One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

    5.
    Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
    What if my leaves are falling like its own!
    The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

    Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
    Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
    My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

    Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
    Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
    And, by the incantation of this verse,

    Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
    Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
    Be through my lips to unawakened earth

    The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
    If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? by William Shakespeare

    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
    Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service

    A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
    The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
    Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
    And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

    When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
    There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for bear.
    He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse,
    Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
    There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
    But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

    There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
    And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
    With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
    As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
    Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
    And I turned my head - and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

    His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
    Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
    The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
    So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
    In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
    Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands - my God! but that man could play!

    Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
    And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
    With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
    A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
    While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars -
    Then you've a haunch what the music meant ... hunger and night and the stars.

    And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans;
    But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
    For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
    But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love;
    A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true -
    (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, - the lady that's known as Lou.)

    Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
    But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
    That some one had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
    That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
    'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through -
    "I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

    The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;
    And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
    The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
    And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,

    And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
    In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
    Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm;
    And, "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
    But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
    That one of you is a hound of hell ... and that one is Dan McGrew."

    Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
    And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark;
    Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
    While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

    These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know;
    They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
    I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two -
    The woman that kissed him and - pinched his poke - was the lady that's known as Lou.

The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

    Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
    Why he left his home in the South to roam round the Pole God only knows.
    He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
    Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell."

    On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
    Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
    If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn't see;
    It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

    And that very night as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
    And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
    He turned to me, and, "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
    And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

    Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no: then he says with a sort of moan:
    "It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
    Yet 'taint being dead, it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains:
    So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

    A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
    And we started on at the streak of dawn, but God! he looked ghastly pale.
    He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
    And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

    There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror driven,
    With a corpse half-hid that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given;
    It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
    But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

    Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
    In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
    In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
    Howled out their woes to the homeless snows - O God! how I loathed the thing!

    And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
    And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
    The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
    And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

    Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
    It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
    And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum:
    Then, "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

    Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
    Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
    The flames just soared, and the furnace roared - such a blaze you seldom see;
    And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

    Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
    And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
    It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
    And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

    I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
    But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
    I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
    I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked," ... then the door I opened wide.

    And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
    It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm -
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

    There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

Repression of War Experience by Siegfried Sassoon

    Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
    What silly beggars they are to blunder in
    And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame -
    No, no, not that, - it's bad to think of war,
    When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
    And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
    Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
    That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

    Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand,
    Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen,
    And you're as right as rain...
        Why won't it rain? ...
    I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night,
    With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
    And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

    Books; what a jolly company they are,
    Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves,
    Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green,
    And every kind of colour. Which will you read?
    Come on; O do read something; they're so wise.
    I tell you all the wisdom of the world
    Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet
    You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out,
    And listen to the silence: on the ceiling
    There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters;
    And in the breathless air outside the house
    The garden waits for something that delays.
    There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees, -
    Not people killed in battle, - they're in France, -
    But horrible shapes in shrouds - old men who died
    Slow, natural deaths, - old men with ugly souls,
    Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.
        *        *        *        *        *
    You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;
    You'd never think there was a bloody war on! ...
    O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns.
    Hark! Thud, thud, thud, - quite soft ... they never cease -
    Those whispering guns - O Christ, I want to go out
    And screech at them to stop - I'm going crazy;
    I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns.

Joy-Bells by Siegfried Sassoon

    Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells
    To the green-vista'd gladness of the past
    That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells
    To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.

    What means this metal in windy belfries hung
    When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells
    Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue
    Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.

    Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
    That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us."
    So let our bells and bishops do the same,
    Shoulder to shoulder with the motor bus.

Before the Battle by Siegfried Sassoon

    Music of whispering trees
    Hushed by the broad-winged breeze
    Where shaken water gleams;
    And evening radiance falling
    With reedy bird-notes calling.
    O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.

    I have no need to pray
    That fear may pass away;
    I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
    That summons me from cool
    Silence of marsh and pool,
    And yellow lilies islanded in light.
    O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.

    June 25th, 1916.

For *** by Vita Sackville-West

        No eyes shall see the poems that I write
        For you; not even yours; but after long
        Forgetful years have passed on our delight
        Some hand may chance upon a dusty song

        Of those fond days when every spoken word
        Was sweet, and all the fleeting things unspoken
        Yet sweeter, and the music half unheard
        Murmured through forests as a charm unbroken.

        It is the plain and ordinary page
        Of two who loved, sole-spirited and clear.
        Will you, O stranger of another age,
        Not grant a human and compassionate tear
        To us, who each the other held so dear?
        A single tear fraternal, sadly shed,
        Since that which was so living, is so dead.

The Garden by Vita Sackville-West

        We owned a garden on a hill,
        We planted rose and daffodil,
        Flowers that English poets sing,
        And hoped for glory in the Spring.

        We planted yellow hollyhocks,
        And humble sweetly-smelling stocks,
        And columbine for carnival,
        And dreamt of Summer's festival.

        And Autumn not to be outdone
        As heiress of the summer sun,
        Should doubly wreathe her tawny head
        With poppies and with creepers red.

        We waited then for all to grow,
        We planted wallflowers in a row.
        And lavendar and borage blue,,
        Alas! we waited, I and you,
        But love was all that ever grew.

            Long Barn
            Summer, 1915

Trio by Vita Sackville-West

    So well she knew them both! yet as she came
    Into the room, and heard their speech
    Of tragic meshes knotted with her name,
    And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each
    Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity,
    Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she
    Broke as the stranger on their conference,
    And stole abashed from thence.

Remember by Christina Rossetti

    Remember me when I am gone away,
        Gone far away into the silent land;
        When you can no more hold me by the hand,
    Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
    Remember me when no more day by day
        You tell me of our future that you planned:
        Only remember me; you understand
    It will be late to counsel then or pray.
    Yet if you should forget me for a while
        And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
        For if the darkness and corruption leave
        A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
    Better by far you should forget and smile
        Than that you should remember and be sad.

A Wintry Sonnet by Christina Rossetti

    A robin said: The Spring will never come,
    And I shall never care to build again.
    A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
    My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
    The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
    I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
    The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
    Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main.
    When springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
    And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
    Gray hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
    Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
    The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
    Dimpled his blue, - yet thirsted evermore.

Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro’.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

Song by Christina Rossetti

    When I am dead, my dearest,
        Sing no sad songs for me;
    Plant thou no roses at my head,
        Nor shady cypress tree:
    Be the green grass above me
        With showers and dewdrops wet;
    And if thou wilt, remember,
        And if thou wilt, forget.

    I shall not see the shadows,
        I shall not feel the rain;
    I shall not hear the nightingale
        Sing on, as if in pain:
    And dreaming through the twilight
        That doth not rise nor set,
    Haply I may remember,
        And haply may forget.

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day by Alexander Pope

I

Descend ye Nine! descend and sing;
The breathing instruments inspire,
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain:
Let the loud trumpet sound,
'Till the roofs all around
The shrill echo's rebound:
While in more lengthen'd notes and slow,
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.
Hark! the numbers, soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;
'Till, by degrees, remote and small,
The strains decay,
And melt away,
In a dying, dying fall.

II

By Music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, assuasive voice applies;
Or when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouzes from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
List'ning Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our Passions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away their rage.

III

But when our Country's cause provokes to Arms,
How martial music ev'ry bosom warms!
So when the first bold vessel dar'd the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main.
Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Enflam'd with glory's charms:
Each chief his sev'nfold shield display'd,
And half unsheath'd the shining blade:
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms, to arms, to arms!

IV

But when thro' all th'infernal bounds
Which flaming Phlegeton surrounds,
Love, strong as Death, the Poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear'd,
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortur'd ghosts!
But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortur'd ghosts respire,
See, shady forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sysiphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance!
The Furies sink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their heads.

V

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er th' Elysian flow'rs,
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of Asphodel,
Or Amaranthine bow'rs,
By the hero's armed shades,
Glitt'ring thro' the gloomy glades,
By the youths that dy'd for love,
Wand'ring in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Eurydice to life;
Oh take the husband, or return the wife!
He sung, and hell consented
To hear the Poet's pray'r;
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair.
Thus song could prevail
O'er death and o'er hell,
A conquest how hard and how glorious?
Tho' fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet music and love were victorious.

VI

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in Maeanders,
All alone,
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan;
And calls her ghost,
For ever, ever, ever lost!
Now with Furies surrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
He trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope's snows:
See, wild as the winds, o'er the desart he flies;
Hark! Haemus resounds with the Bacchanals cries —
— Ah see, he dies!
Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung,
Eurydice still trembled on his tongue,
Eurydice the woods,
Eurydice the floods,
Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

VII

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm:
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
Th'immortal pow'rs incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And Angels lean from heav'n to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let Poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n;
His numbers rais'd a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heav'n.

Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.

To One Departed by Edgar Allan Poe

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.
For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow,
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

The Raven 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!