I.
Once upon a storm-night dreary, sat I pond’ring, restless, weary,
Over many a text of Scripture, helped by ancient-sages’ lore,
Anxious, nervous, far from napping; suddenly there came a tapping!
As of some one gently rapping—rapping at my chamber-door.
Night like this ’tis scarce a visitor, tapping at my chamber-door?
This, I thought, and nothing more.
II.
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember, glimmer’d ghostly on the floor: