Hovered the Dove around an antique cross, Which long had stood afront the pallid bust Of haughty Pallas o'er my chamber door: Neglected it had been through all the storm Of maddening doubts born from the demon cry Reechoing from the night's Plutonian shore: 'Lenore! Lenore! ah! never--nevermore!' I loved all heathen, antique, classic lore, And thus the cross had paled before the brow Of Pallas, radiant type of Reason's power. But human reason fails in hours of woe, And wisdom's goddess ne'er reopes the grave. What knows chill Pallas of corruption's doom? Upon her massive, rounded, glittering brow The Bird of Doubt had chos'n a fitting place To knell into my heart forever more: 'Ah I never, nevermore! Lenore! Lenore!' The Raven's plumage, in the kindling rays, Shone with metallic lustre, sombre fire; His fiendish eye, so blue, and fierce, and cold, Froze like th' hyena's when she tears the dead. The sculptured beauty of the marble brow Of Pallas glittered, as though diamond-strewn: Haughty and dazzling, yet no voice of peace, But words of dull negation darkly fell From Reason's goddess in her brilliant sheen! No secret bears she from the silent grave; She stands appalled before its dark abyss, And shudders at its gloom with all her lore, All powerless to ope its grass-grown door. Can Pallas e'er the loved and lost restore? Hear her wild Raven shriek: 'Lenore! no more!'