I am pretty worn out and everything else I tried to write was either woefully short or not very good, so today I’ll let the lyrical stylings of Mr. Edgar Allen Poe entertain you. Poe is one of my very favorite authors, and hey if you add and "st" sound to the end of his name he could be a distant relative. A girl can dream. As a young lass I always did go in for the strange and unusual............(and to steal a quote) I myself am, strange and unusual. ;-)
Being the voracious
reader that I am, Mr. Poe kept me entertained for hours on end. My very
favorite is The Masque of the Red Death. I read it in elementary school and was
hooked ever after. Imagine that, a small girl child loving a colorful story
about a party and the plague. hmmmm. And what do you know; this year plague
doctors and masks are all the rage again. I was a tiny hipster trendsetter and
I never even knew it.
I also dearly love To
Helen, A Dream, Dream Within A Dream, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Murders in the
Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask
of Amontillado, the Black Cat, Eldorado and the Bells.
But, what would
October be without The Raven? It would be a sorry slip of a month, doomed to
wither away in the shadows without so much as a backward glance. So, for your
reading pleasure I will whet your whistle with a bit of my second favorite Poe
story, the Raven, and leave you to search
out the rest. And you want to know the coolest bit, now I actually know someone
named Lenore!
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 someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "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 wished the morrow;--vainly I had 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
Thrilled 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 opened wide the door--
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that
darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber
turning, all my sour within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window
lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind 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 mien 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.
Then the ebony bird
beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," 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."
