From the hollow gloom abysmal, floating downward, grimly dismal,
Like a pagan curse baptismal from the bust above the door,
He would hear the Raven croaking from the dusk above the door,
"Never, never, nevermore!"
And, too angry to be civil, "Raven," Poe would cry "or devil,
Tell me why you will persist in haunting Death's Plutonian shore?"
Then would croak the Raven gladly, "I will tell you why so sadly,
I so mournfully and madly, haunt you, taunt you, o'er and o'er,
Why eternally I haunt you, daunt you, taunt you, o'er and o'er—
Only this, and nothing more.