The Raven and Other Short Stories

by Edgar Allan Poe

  The Raven

  and

  Other Short Stories

  by Edgar Allan Poe

  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.

  “’Tis some visiter,” 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 visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—

  Some late visiter 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 soul 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.”

  Much I marvelled 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 that placid bust, spoke only

  That one word, as if its 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 all my sad soul 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 expressing

  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 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 has 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 shadows on the floor;

  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

  Shall be lifte
d—nevermore!

  The Masque of the Red Death

  * * *

  The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

  But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death”.

  It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

  It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

  It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

  But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

  He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani”. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

  But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the las
t echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

  In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

  When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.