But the Raven still beguiling my amused soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled my easy-chair in front of bird, and bust, and door; Then, upon the cushion sinking, thought to thought by fancy linking, I employed my brains in thinking what this black and feathered bore, Like all gaunt funereal vaunters of those precious days of yore, Meant by croaking “Nevermore!” Then methought the air grew denser, darkened as by cynic censor, Some CASSANDRA whose forecastings are of evil days in store. “Croak no more!” I cried. “Content thee with the gifts the gods have sent thee; Give us respite and nepenthe from sad dreams of days of yore! Let us quaff hope’s sweet nepenthe, and forget those days of yore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!” “Prophet,” said I, “of things evil! ‘Things are going to the devil,’ Is the formula of fogies, I have heard that bosh before; Times look dark, but hearts undaunted find the future still enchanted, With fair visions such as haunted valiant souls in days of yore. Can’t you, _can’t_ you look less glum? Keep up your pecker, I implore.” Quoth the Raven――“Nevermore!” “Prophet,” said I, “of things evil, I don’t wish to be uncivil, But the heavens still bend above us, happy days are still in store; All are not with megrims laden, still the future holds its Aidenn, For brave youth and beauteous maiden; prophets _have_ been wrong before, Generally _are_, in fact; why can’t they learn, and cease to bore?” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!” “Then, look here! we’d best be parting, croaking fowl!” I cried, upstarting, “You had better find your way to some Fools’ Paradise’s shore! Leave no feather as a token of the rubbish you have spoken, Leave my lonely rest unbroken, quit that bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my sight, and take thy blackness from my door!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!” And the Raven still is squatting, my æsthetic paper blotting, On the plaster bust of DIZZY, just above my chamber-door, With his wall-eyes dully gleaming ’neath the nightmare of his dreaming, And the gaslight o’er him streaming, casts his shadow on the floor; But _my_ soul in that black shadow that lies heavy on the floor, Shall be shrouded――Nevermore! _Punch_, January 10, 1880. ―――――――― THE GOLD DIGGER. Once upon an evening dreary, a gold-digger, tired and weary, Cogitated very sadly, brain and bone and heart were sore, For no gold came by his toiling, unkind fate seemed ever foiling All his toilsome, weary efforts, and the keeper of the store Had pitilessly stopped his credit; quoth the keeper of the store, “I can’t tucker you no more.”