It is an infernal bore!

Presently I grew more placid (Optimists should not be acid.)

"Come in!" I exclaimed—"confound you! Pray stand drumming there no more."

But the donkey still kept tapping. "Dolt!" I muttered, sharply snapping,

"Why the deuce do you come rapping, rapping at my Office-door?

Yet not 'enter' when you're told to?"—here I opened wide the door—

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Open next I flung the shutter, when, with a prodigious flutter,

In there stepped a bumptious Raven, black as any blackamoor.

Not the least obeisance made he, not a moment stopped or stayed he,