TUMN_

_A Dirge_

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying;
And the year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array,--
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling.
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black, and grey;
Let your light sisters play;
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.

_P. B. Shelley_

XCVII

_THE RAVEN_

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
''Tis some visitor,' I mutter'd, '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 wish'd the morrow;--vainly had I sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrill'd me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
''Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--
This it is, 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 open'd wide the door;--
Darkness the