tters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore.'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheel'd a cushion'd seat in front of bird, and bust, and
door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burnt into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aidenn
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'
Quoth the raven 'Nevermore.'

'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shriek'd,
upstarting--
'Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of the lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken, quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!
Quoth the raven 'Nevermore.'

And the raven never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a daemon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that is floating on the floor
Shall be lifted 'Nevermore.'

_E. A. Poe_

XCVIII

_THE NIX_

The crafty Nix, more false than fair
Whose haunt in arrowy Iser lies,
She envied me my golden hair,
She envied me my azure eyes.

The moon with s