Classic Audiobook Collection - The Raven and The Philosophy Of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe ~ Full Audiobook [poetry]

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

The Raven and The Philosophy Of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe audiobook. Genre: poetry Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven and The Philosophy of Composition pairs one of the most famous narrative poems in American literature with the provocative essay in which Poe claims to explain how he built it. In The Raven, a sleepless narrator, raw with grief and memory, tries to read away the night when an unexpected visitor arrives: a raven that perches above his door and answers every question with the same unnerving refrain. As the hours tighten, the speaker's curiosity turns to obsession, and the bird's calm presence becomes a mirror for longing, dread, and the mind's talent for self-torment. The companion piece, The Philosophy of Composition, shifts from candlelit Gothic atmosphere to cool analysis as Poe walks listeners through his stated method: choosing a single emotional effect, selecting sound and rhythm to reinforce it, and arranging images and repetition to escalate intensity. Together, poem and essay form a compact masterclass on how mood is engineered, how meaning can be driven by music, and how art can feel both inevitable and hauntingly personal. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:02:08) Chapter 01 (00:33:51) Chapter 02 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the raven and the philosophy of composition by edgar allan poe forward the initial intention of the publishers to present the raven without preface notes or other extraneous matter that might detract from an undivided appreciation of the poem has been somewhat modified by the introduction of poe's prose essay the philosophy of composition if any justification were necessary it is to be found both in the unique literature interest of the essay, and in the fact that it is, or purports to be, a frank exposition of the modus operandi by which the raven was written, it is felt that no other introduction could be more happily conceived or executed. Coming from Poe's own hand, it directly avoids the charge of presumption, and written in Poe's most felicitous style, it entirely escapes the defect, not uncommon in analytical treatises of pedantry. It is indeed possible, as some critics assert,

that this supposed analysis is purely fictitious. If so, it becomes all the more distinctive as a marvelous bit of an imaginative writing, and as such ranks equally with that wild snatch of melody, the Raven. But these same critics would lead us further to believe that the Raven itself is almost a literal translation of the work of a persian poet if they be again correct poe's genius as seen in the creation of the philosophy of composition is far more startling than it has otherwise appeared

and robbed of his bay leaves in the realm of poetry he is to be crowned with the double wreath of buried holly for his prose end forward part one of the raven and the philosophy of composition by edgar allan poe this librivox recording is in the public domain the philosophy of composition by edgar allan poe charles dickens in a note now lying before me alluding to an examination i once made of the mechanism of barnaby rudge says by the way are you aware that godwin wrote his caleb williams backwards he first involved his hero in a web of of difficulties forming the second volume and then for the first cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been done i cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of godwin and indeed what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in accordance with mr dickens's idea but the author of caleb williams was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with a de numont constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone

at all points, tend to the development of the intention. There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis, or one is suggested by an incident of the day, or at best the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative, designing generally to fill in with description, dialogue, or artorial comment, whatever crevices of fact or action may from page to page render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect, keeping originality always in view for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest i say to myself in the first place of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart the intellect or more generally the soul is susceptible what one shall i on the present occasion select having chosen a novel first and secondly a vivid effect

I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone, whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone, afterward looking about me, or rather within, for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect. I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would, that is to say, who could, who could, detail step by step the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion why such a paper has never been given to the world i am much at a loss to say but perhaps the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause most writers poets in especial prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy an ecstatic intuition and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peek behind the scenes at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought at the true purposes seized only at the last moment at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable at the cautious selections and rejections at the painful erasures and interpolations in a word at the wheels and pinions the tackle for scene shifting the step-ladders and demon traps the cocks feathers the red paint and the black patches which in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred constitute the properties of the literary histrio i am aware on the other hand and that the case is by no means common in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained in general suggestions have arisen pell-mell are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner

for my own part i have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to nor at any time the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions and since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction such as i have considered a desideratum is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together i select the raven as most generally known it is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to act or intuition, that the work proceeded step by step to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss as irrelevant to the poem per se the circumstance, or say the necessity, which in the first place gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that would suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

We commence then with this intention. the initial consideration was that of extent if any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression for if two sittings be required the affairs of the world interfere and everything like totality is at once destroyed but since cederis paribus no poet can afford to dispense with anything that may advance his design it but remains to be seen whether there is an extent any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones, that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it intensely excites by elevating the soul,

and all intense excitements are, through a psychical necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the Paradise Lost is essentially prose, a succession of poetical excitements interspersed inevitably with corresponding depressions, the whole being deprived through the extremeness of its length of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of effect. It appears evident, then, that there is a, distinct limit as regards length to all works of literary art the limit of a single sitting and that although in certain classes of prose composition such as robinson crusoe demanding no unity this limit may be advantageously overpassed it can never properly be overpassed in a poem within this limit the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit in other words to the excitement or elevation again in other words to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing

for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio to the intensity of the intended effect this with one proviso that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem, a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight. My next thought concerned the choice of an impression or effect to be conveyed, and here I may as well observe that throughout the construction I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which

I have repeatedly insisted and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration, the point I mean, that beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent, that pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When indeed men speak of beauty, they mean precisely not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect. They refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul, not of intellect or of heart, upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the beautiful. Now, I designate beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes, that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment.

no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in the poem now the object truth or the satisfaction of the intellect and the object passion or the excitement of the heart are although attainable to a certain extent in poetry far more readily attainable in prose truth in fact demands a precision and passion a homeliness the truly passionate will comprehend me which are absolutely antagonistic to that beauty which i maintain is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of the soul it by no means follows from anything here said that passion or even truth may not be introduced and even profitably introduced into a poem for they may serve in elucidation or aid the general effect as do discords in music by contrast but the true artist will always contrive first to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim and secondly to enveal them as far as possible in that beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem regarding then beauty as my province my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones the length the province and the tone being thus determined i betook myself to ordinary induction with the view of obtaining some artistic pecancy which might serve me as a keynote in the construction of the poem some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn

in carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects or more properly points in the theatrical sense i did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain the universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis i considered it however with regard to its susceptibility of improvement and soon saw that it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly used, the refrain or burden not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone, both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity, of repetition. I resolve to diversify, and so heighten the effect by adhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought. That is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel effects by the variation of the application of the refrain, the refrain itself, remaining for the most

part unvaried. These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length in proportion to the brevity of the sentence would of course be the facility of the variation this led me at once to a single word as the best refrain the question now arose as to the character of the word having made up my mind to a refrain the division of the poem into stanzas was of course a corollary the refrain forming the close of each stanza that such a close of each stanza that such a close to have forced must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis admitted no doubt and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel in connection with r as the most producible consonant the sound of the refrain being thus determined it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which i had predetermined as the tone of the poem in such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word nevermore in fact it was the very first which presented itself

the next desiderotum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word nevermore in observing the difficulty which i at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition i did not fail to perceive that this difficulty of this difficulty of the moment in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition i did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being i did not fail to perceive in short that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word here then immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech and very naturally a parrot in the first instance suggested itself but was superseded forthwith by a raven as equally capable of speech and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone i had now gone so far as the conception of a raven the bird of ill omen monotonously repeating the one word nevermore at the conclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone and in length about one hundred lines now never lose sight of the object supremeness or perfection at all points, I asked myself, of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy. Death was the obvious reply, and when, I said, is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?

From what I've already explained at some length, the answer here also is obvious when it most closely allies itself to beauty the death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover i had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a raven continuously repeating the word nevermore i had to combine these bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the application of the word repeated but the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the raven employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover and here it was that i saw at once the one the one of the one's the one that i saw at once the one the one the one's the lover and here it was that i saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which i had been depending that is to say the effect of the variation of application i saw that i could make the first query propounded by the lover the first query to which the raven should reply nevermore that i could make this first query a common-placed one the second less so the third still less and so on and till at length the lover startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself by its frequent repetition and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fow that uttered it is at length excited to superstition and wildly propounds queries of a far different character queries whose solution he has passionately at heart propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird which reason assures him is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote

but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his questions as to receive from the expected nevermore the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me or more strictly thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction i first established in mind the climax or concluding query that query to which nevermore should be in the last place an answer that in reply to which this word nevermore would involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair here then the poem may be said to have its beginning at the end where all works of art should begin for it was here at this point of my precon considerations that i first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza 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 aden it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name lenore clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore, quoth the raven, never more. I composed this stanza at this point, first, that by establishing the climax, I might the better vary and graduate, as regard seriousness and importance, the preceding queries of the lover,

and secondly that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the meter, and the length and general arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas which were to proceed, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple, have purposely enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climatyric effect. And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object, as usual, was originality.

The extent to which this has been neglected in versification is one of the most unaccountable things in the world admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm it is still clear that the possible varieties of meter and stanza are absolutely infinite and yet for centuries no man in verse has ever done or ever seem to think of doing an original thing the fact is that originality unless in minds of very unusual force is by no means a matter as some suppose of the fact is of the original thing-the fact is that originality unless in minds of very unusual force is by no means a matter as some suppose of impulse or intuition in general to be found it must be elaborately sought and although a positive merit of the highest class demands in its attainment less of invention than negation of course i pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the raven the former is trochaic the latter is octameter a catalytic alternating with heptameter catalytic repeated in the refrain of the fifane of the fifth verse and terminating with tetrameter catalytic. Less pedantically, the feet employed throughout troquets consist of a long syllable followed by a short. The first line of the stanza consists of eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half, in effect two-thirds, the third of eight,

the fourth of seven and a half, the fifth the same, the sixth three and a half. Now each of these lines taken individually has been employed before, and what originality the Raven has is in their combination in Dostanza. Nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration. The next point to be considered, was the mode of bringing together the lubber and the raven and the first branch of this consideration was the locale for this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest or the fields but it has always appeared to me that a close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident it has the force of a frame to a picture it has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention and that

and of course must not be confounded with mere unity of place i determined then to place the lover in his chamber in a chamber rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it the room is represented as richly furnished this in mere pursuance of the ideas i have already explained on the subject of beauty as the sole true poetical thesis the locale being thus determined i had now to interest the bird, and the thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The idea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter is a tapping at the door, originated in a wish to increase by prolonging the reader's curiosity, and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from the lovers throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the half-finding the half-fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked.

I made the night tempestuous, first to account for the raven seeking admission, and secondly for the effect of contrast with the physical serenity within the chamber. I made the bird a light on the bust of palace also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage, it being understood that the bust was absolutely suggested by the bird. the bust of palace being chosen first as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover and secondly for the sonorousness of the word palace itself about the middle of the poem also i have availed myself of the force of contrast with a view of deepening the ultimate impression for example an air of the fantastic approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was admissible is given to the raven's entrance he can't even an air of the fantastic approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was admissible is given to the raven's entrance he comes in with many a flirt and flutter not the least obeisance made he not a minute stopped or stayed he but with mean of lord or lady perched above my chamber door in the two stanzas which follow the design is more obviously carried out 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 knightly shore tell me what thy lordly name is on the knight's plutonian shore quoth the raven never more much i marveled this ungainly foul to bear 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 of above his chamber door bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door with such name as nevermore the effect of the de nuo being thus provided for i immediately dropped the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness this tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted with the line but the raven sitting lonely on that placid bust spoke only etc from this epoch the lover no longer jests no longer sees anything even of the fantastic in the raven's demeanor he speaks of him as a grim ungainly ghastly gaunt and ominous bird of yore and feels the fiery eyes burning into his bosom's core this revolution of thought or fancy on the lover's part is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader to bring the mind into a proper frame for the denouement which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as possible with a denouement proper with the raven's reply nevermore to the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world the poem in its obvious phase that of a simple narrative may be said to have its completion so far everything is within the limits of the accountable of the real a raven having learned by i wrote the single word nevermore and having escaped from the custody of its owner is driven at midnight through the violence of a storm to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams the chamber window of a student occupied half in pouring over a volume

half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased the casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student who amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's demeanour demands of it in jest and without looking for a reply its name the raven addressed answers with his customary word never more a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student who giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion is again startled by the foul's repetition of nevermore the student now guesses the state of the case but is impelled as i have before explained by the human thirst for self-torture and in part by superstition to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him the lover the most of the luxury of sorrow through the anticipated answer never more with the indulgence to the extreme of this self-torture the narration in what i have termed its first or obvious phase has a natural termination and so far there has been no overstepping of the limits of the real but in subject so handled however skilfully or with however vivid an array of incident there is always a certain hardness or nakedness which repels the artistical eye two things are invariably required first some amount of complexity or more properly adaptation and secondly some amount of suggestiveness some undercurrent however indefinite of meaning it is this latter in especial which imparts to a work of art so much of that richness to borrow from colloquy a forcible term which we are too fond of confounding with the ideal it is the excess of the suggested

meaning. It is the rendering this, the upper, instead of the undercurrent of the theme, which turns into prose, and that of the very flattest kind, the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists. Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stances of the poem, their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative which has preceded them. The undercurrent of meaning is rendered first apparent in the last. lines, take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door. Quote the raven, Nevermore. It will be observed that the words from out my heart involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer, nevermore, dispose the mind to seek a moral in

all that has been previously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the raven as emblematical, but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of mournful and never-ending remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen and the raven never flitting still is sitting still is sitting on the pallid bust of palace 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 never more end of the philosophy of composition part two of the raven and the philosophy of composition by edgar allan poe this libervox recording is in the public domain part two the raven once upon a midnight dreary while i pondered weak and weary over a many quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore while i nodded nearly napping suddenly there came a tapping as of some one gently rapping rapping on 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 angel name lenore nameless here forevermore and the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before so that now to sill the beating of my heart i stood repeating tis some visitor in treating entrance at my chamber door some late visitor in treating entrance at my chamber door this is it, 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. 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,

lanor. This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word lanor. Merely this. and nothing more back into the chamber turning o 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 shudder 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 mean of lord or lady perched above my chamber door perched upon a bust of palace 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 an ancient raven wandering from the knightly shore tell me what thy lordly name is on the knight's plutonian shore quoth the raven never more much i marvelled this ungainly foul 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 never more but the raven sitting lonely on the placid busts spoke only that one word as if his soul in that one word he did outpore nothing further than he uttered not a feather than 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 never more startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly broken doubtless said i what it utters is only its 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 never more 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 unto fancy thinking what this ominous bird of yore what this grim ungainly ghastly gaunt and ominous bird of yore meant in croaking never more this i sat engaged in guessing but no syllable expressing to the fow whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core this and more i sat divining with my head at ease reclining on the cushions velvet lining that the lamplight gloated oar but whose velvet violet-violet lining with the lamp-like gloating o'er she shall press ah never more

then methought the air grew denser perfumed from an unseen censer swung by seraphum whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor wretch i cried thy god hath lent thee by these angels he has sent thee respite respite and nepent thee from thy memories of lenore quaff o quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost lenore quoth the raven never more prophet said i thing of evil prophet still if bird or devil whether tempter sent or whether tempest toss 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 never more prophet said i thing of evil prophet still if a bird or devil by that heaven that bends above us by that god we both adore tell this soul with sorrow laden if we were within the distant aden 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 never more be that word our sign of parting bird or fiend i shrieked up starting get thee back into the tempest and the night's plutonian shore leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy sword 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 never more

and the raven never flitting still is sitting still is sitting on the pallid bust of palace 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 never more end of part two end of the raven and the philosophy of composition by edgar allan poe