Of the bells, bells, bells--
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells;
To the tolling of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells;
Bells, bells, bells--
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells!
E. A. Poe.


CLXI.

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 some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'T is 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 named Lenore--