Ten years since I last composed music
...

---

Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary
over many a quaint of curious volume of forgotten lore.
While I nodded nearly napping suddenly there came a tapping
as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
'Tis some visitor I muttered, Tapping on my chamber door'
Only this and nothing more.
...
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he
But with mies of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door
perched, and sat, and nothing more.
...
'Prophet' said I, 'thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bens above us - by the God we both adore -
Tell the soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

From Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven, 1845