No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene."

It lacks the aerial melody of the poet whose heart-strings are a lute:

"And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings--
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings."

But _The Raven_, like "The Bells" and "Annabel Lee," commends itself to the
many and the few. I have said elsewhere that Poe's rarer productions seemed
to me "those in which there is the appearance, at least, of
spontaneity,--in which he yields to his feelings, while dying falls and
cadences most musical, most melancholy, come from him unawares." This is
still my belief; and yet, upon a fresh study of this poem, it impresses me
more than at any time since my boyhood. Close acquaintance tells in favor
of every true work of art. Induce the man, who neither knows art nor cares
for it, to examine some poem or painting, and how soon its force takes hold
of him! In fact, he will overrate the relative value of the first good work
by which his attention has been fairly caught. _The Raven_, also, has
consistent qualities which even an expert must admire. In no other of its
author's poems is the motive more palpably defined. "The Haunted Palace" is
just as definite to the select reader, but Poe scarcely would have taken
that subtle allegory for bald analysis. _The Raven_ is wholly occupied with
the author's typical theme--the irretrievable loss of an idolized and
beautiful woman; but on other grounds, also, the public instinct is correct