Then, this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smil

ing

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, inou,” I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore:

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door

With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke

only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did

outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered;

Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed 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 my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned 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 express

ing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned 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!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from

an unseen censer

Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of

Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil!

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted

On this home by Horror haunted-tell me truly, I

implore:

Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven, "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 shrieked, upstarting:

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that 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 demon'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 lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Born in the same year, son of the pastor of the First Church at Cambridge, Holmes' life is a sharp contrast to that of Poe. He went through a conventional education at Andover and Harvard, and was first noticed for his poem "Old Ironsides," which appeared in the Boston Advertiser and saved the frigate Constitution from being destroyed. He gave up law for medicine and soon showed himself a pioneer in medical science. He studied in Edinburgh and in Paris and published his first volume of Poems in the year he took his medical degree. At the age of thirty he became professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth. The next year he married and began practising medicine in Boston. Seven years later he became Parkman professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard, a position he held for thirtyfive years, when he was made Professor Emeritus.

Soon after The Atlantic Monthly was founded Holmes began to publish his Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, essays which were brought out in book-form in 1859. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table appeared the next year. The Poet at the BreakfastTable was published more than a decade later. Holmes wrote two novels in the 'sixties, the last one proving in some of its ideas rather radical for the time. He wrote other volumes of essays, biographies of Motley and Emerson, and some eight volumes of verse, the last being published in 1888.

Holmes was the great wit and occasional versifier of his time. Many poems that he wrote, perfect for the occasion they celebrated, have lost for us that timely appeal. He could be grave or gay with equal grace, and his kindly humor was abounding. He remains a distinctly minor poet though a delightful versifier. His life was even and placid compared with that of Poe; in actual living he made far fewer mistakes. But Poe's poetry is in a different category altogether. Holmes had his own brilliance, his own courageous intelligence. He developed his best gifts to the