knell into my heart forever more:
'Ah I never, nevermore! Lenore! Lenore!'
The Raven's plumage, in the kindling rays,
Shone with metallic lustre, sombre fire;
His fiendish eye, so blue, and fierce, and cold,
Froze like th' hyena's when she tears the dead.
The sculptured beauty of the marble brow
Of Pallas glittered, as though diamond-strewn:
Haughty and dazzling, yet no voice of peace,
But words of dull negation darkly fell
From Reason's goddess in her brilliant sheen!
No secret bears she from the silent grave;
She stands appalled before its dark abyss,
And shudders at its gloom with all her lore,
All powerless to ope its grass-grown door.
Can Pallas e'er the loved and lost restore?
Hear her wild Raven shriek: 'Lenore! no more!'
With gloomy thoughts and thronging dreams oppressed,
I sank upon the 'violet velvet chair,
Which she shall press, ah, never, nevermore!'
And gazed, I know not why, upon the cross,
On which the Dove was resting its soft wings,
Glowing and rosy in the morn's warm light.
I cannot tell how long I dreaming lay,
When (as from some old picture, shadowy forms
Loom from a distant background as we gaze,
So bright they gleam, so soft they melt away,
We scarcely know whether 'tis fancy's play
Or artist's skill that wins them to the day)
There grew a band of angels on my sight,
Wreathing in love around the slighted cross.
One swung a censer, hung with bell-like flowers,
Whence tones and perfumes mingling charmed the air;
Thick clouds of incense veiled their shadowy forms,
Yet could I see their wings of rainbow light,
The wavings of their white arms, soft and bright.
Then she who swung the censer nearer drew—
The perfumed tones were silent—lowly bent
(The long curls pouring gold adown the wings),
She knelt in prayer before the crucifix.
Her eyes were deep as midnight's mystic stars,
Freighted with love they trembling gazed above,
As pleading for some mortal's bitter pain:
When answered—soft untwined the clasping hands,
The bright wings furled—my heart stood still to hear
'The footfalls tinkle on the tufted floor'—
The eyes met mine—O God! my lost Lenore!
Too deeply awed to clasp her to my heart,
I knelt and gasped—'Lenore! my lost Lenore!
Is there a home for Love beyond the skies?
In pity answer!—shall we meet again?'
Her eyes in rapture floated; solemn, calm,
Then softest music from her lips of balm
Fell, as she joined the angels in the air!
Her words forever charmed away despair!
'Above all pain,
We meet again!
'Kneel and worship humbly
Round the slighted cross!
Death is only seeming—
Love is never loss!
In the hour of sorrow
Calmly look above!
Trust the Holy Victim—
Heaven is in His love!
'Above all pain,
We meet again!
'Never heed the Raven—
Doubt was born in hell!
How can heathen Pallas
Faith of Christian tell?
With the faith of angels,
Led by Holy Dove,
Kneel and pray before Him—
Heaven is in His love!
'Above all pain,
We meet again!'
Then clouds of incense veiled the floating forms;
I only saw the gleams of starry wings,
The flash from lustrous eyes, the glittering hair,
As chanting still the Sanctus of the skies,
Clear o'er the Misereres of earth's graves,
Enveloped in the mist of perfumed haze,
In music's spell they faded from my gaze.
Gone—gone the vision! from my sight it bore
My lost, my found, my ever loved Lenore!
Forgotten scenes of happy infant years,
My mother's hymns around my cradle-bed,
Memories of vesper bell and matin chimes,
Of priests and incensed altars, dimly waked.
The fierce eye of the Raven dimmed and quailed,
His burnished plumage drooped, yet, full of hate,
Began he still his 'wildering shriek—'Lenore!'
When, lo! the Dove broke in upon his cry—
She, too, had found a voice for agony;
Calmly it fell from heaven's cerulean shore:
'Lenore! Lenore! forever—evermore!'
Soon as the Raven heard the silvery tones,
Lulling as gush of mountain-cradled stream,
With maddened plunge he fell to rise no more,
And, in the sweep of his Plutonian wings,
Dashed to the earth the bust of Pallas fair.
The haughty brow lay humbled in the dust,
O'ershadowed by the terror-woven wings
Of that wild Raven, as by some dark pall.
Lift up poor Pallas! bathe her fainting brow
With drops of dewy chrism! take the beak
Of the false Raven from her sinking soul!
Oh, let the Faith Dove nestle in her heart,
Her haughty reason low at Jesu's feet,
While humble as a child she cons the lore:
'The loved, the lost, forever—evermore!'
As if to win me to the crucifix,
The Dove would flutter there, then seek my breast.
The heart must feel its utter orphanage,
Before it makes the cross its dearest hope!
I knelt before the holy martyred form,
The perfect Victim given in perfect love,
The highest symbol of the highest Power,
Self-abnegation