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 lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen

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Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls 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
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

tell me, I implore!"

"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 lamplight 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!

THE BELLS.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

[EDGAR ALLAN POE: An American poet and author; born at Boston, Mass., 1809. Orphaned in his third year, he was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va., by whom he was sent to school at StokeNewington, near London. He spent a year at the University of Virginia (1826); enlisted as a private in the United States army under an assumed name, becoming sergeant major (1829); and was admitted to West Point (1830), receiving his dismissal the next year. Thrown upon his own resources, he began writing for the papers. Subsequently he became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, in Richmond; was on the staff of The Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine, in Philadelphia, and the Broadway Journal in New York. He died in a Baltimore hospital, October 7, 1849. "The Raven" and "The Bells" are his most popular poems. His fame as a prose writer rests on his tales of terror and mystery.]

I.

HEAR the sledges with the bells,

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells, -
Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtledove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! How it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,-

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.
Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor
Now- now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells.

Of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells,

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people-ah, the people
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone:

They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are Ghouls;

And their king it is who tolls,-
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls a pæan from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells,
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells,-
Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells,

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 moaning and the groaning of the bells.

VOL. XXIV. — -10

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

upon

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was-but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domainthe bleak walls — upon the vacant eyelike windows-upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after dream of the reveler upon opium-the bitter lapse into everyday life- the hideous dropping of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it-I paused to think what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down-but with a shudder more thrilling than before- upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eyelike windows.