This poem is by the writer Edgar Allan Poe, and is now in the public domain. I hope you enjoy my prose adaptation of it. The original text of the poem as written by Poe can be found on the Poetry Foundation website.
I was reflecting on a quaint and curious volume of lore from years gone by, during a dreary midnight. So late it was that I nearly drifted into sleep, but just before I nodded away, I suddenly heard a tap sound, perhaps of someone rapping at my chamber door.
“It cannot be anything but a mere visitor, tapping at my chamber door,” I said to myself, trying to remain calm.
I recall quite distinctly that it was on a bleak December midnight. The warmth of the fireplace crackled as it left behind its ghosts, in the form of embers, upon my floor. Growing impatient, I longed for tomorrow to come. I so longed to feel sorrow, but it was sorrow that my books could not provide, for sorrow I indeed felt for the lost Lenore; she was a beautiful girl, so pure and angelic, and it was the angels themselves who named her, but she shall, now and forever, remain nameless.
As I sat in contemplation, feeling sad, my silken purple curtains rustled, bringing about yet more misery. The sheer thrill of something so simple filled me with such fantastic terrors; fantastic terrors that I had never felt before. To calm my rapidly beating heart, pulsating with undying fear, I had little choice but to repeat the words, “There is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door on this late night. There is nothing more to it than this.”
Then, my soul’s resolve began to strengthen, and I no longer felt so hesitant as I did before. I began to speak: “Sir, or Madam, please do forgive me. As much as I would like to help, the fact is that I was napping when you so gently came tapping at my chamber door. So late it is and so tired I am that I was quite unsure if I even heard you!”
So, I spoke, and then I opened the door and saw nothing but empty darkness.
I began to sink into the depths of that darkness, and began to wonder, fear, and doubt my senses. I saw dreams that none of the created had ever dared dream before, and yet the silence remained unbroken. This stillness gave no clue as to the nature of this mystery. The only word breaking the silence was a quiet whisper of the name, “Lenore?” – a whisper that escaped my own lips and no-one else’s.
But then I heard a reply to that whispered name! O, what a relief to realise that it was nothing but an echo of my own voice.
So, I returned to my chamber as my soul burned and burned, but then I heard another tap, and it was somewhat louder than the one before.
“Surely that is something at my window lattice,” I said to myself, as I moved towards the window wanting to explore this mystery. It is probably just the wind, I thought to myself.
As I flung open the shutter, a stately raven flew in from the saintly days of yore! He paid little respect to me, nor did he have the courtesy to stop or to stay. With the same aristocratic demeanour of a lord or a lady, the bird perched itself upon a bust of Pallas above my chamber door. He perched, and he sat, and he did nothing much else.
The ebony bird enchanted me so that my sadness was no longer expressed through tears but through a smile, and it achieved this by its grave and stern decorum; that strange expression that it wore.
I spoke: “Despite your being presentable – your neat and tidy appearance – you are certainly not an emblem of cowardice! You are ghastly, you are grim, and you are ancient, and you have come wandering from the Nightly shore. O One who hails from the Night’s Plutonian shore, tell me: what be your name?”
The Raven said, “Nevermore.”
What a curious phenomenon! What a marvellous specimen from the family of the ungainly crows is this Raven: it speaks plainly and simply, even though its words are meaningless and devoid of any worth.
Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that no-one in the history of humanity has been so blessed as to find himself in my position: to be introduced to a bird or beast, perched upon his chamber door, with such a name as “Nevermore.”
That lonely Raven sitting upon that placid bust spoke no word other than “Nevermore.” It was as if that word defined his very soul and gave meaning to his days. He stood there, silent, and still, until I said, “Many of my friends and my hopes have flown away from me before. So too you will leave me; you will fly away tomorrow.”
“Nevermore.”
I was startled. This bird broke the stillness of the silence by replying with the only word it knew how to speak, yet it made perfect sense as a response to my misery.
Reminding myself not to become beholden to superstition, I said, “There is little doubt that your speaking ‘Nevermore’ is merely what you have been taught by your Master, who must be a rather unhappy individual for whom Hope was eroded by continual Disaster, such that the only word which could bear their burden was the empty word, ‘Nevermore’.”
The Raven was still working to turn my tears into smiles, and so I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of the bird, the bust, and the door. As I sank into the velvet, I dedicated myself to finding some connection; some connection as to what this ancient, grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
So, I sat, weaving stories from mere guesses, but unable to find the words to express my thoughts to the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core. Nonetheless, I appeared at ease, my head reclining into a velvet cushion, as the lamplight shone over it as if to say, “Nevermore.”
I felt as if the air grew denser thanks to Seraphim, the sound of whose feet tinkled on the tufted floor. “You are a wretch,” I cried, “though you come from God. Through his angels, he has sent you respite and a nepenthe that can cure me from my grief having lost the lost Lenore. You take this kind nepenthe; please forget this lost Lenore!”
“Nevermore.”
“Whether you are a bird, or whether you are a devil, you are but a Prophet, and so that I shall call you. Prophet, whether you were sent to me by the Tempter, or whether you were tossed ashore – to this desolate yet not at all daunting desert – by an unforgiving storm, on this home that Horror has now haunted – you tell me, is there balm in Gilead? You must tell me; I command you to!”
“Nevermore.”
“Whether you are a bird, or whether you are a devil, you are but a Prophet, and so that I shall call you. Perhaps you were indeed sent by God, who dwells in the Heaven that we both do adore, tell me – for I am a soul laden with sorrow – if in Paradise there exists a saintly girl who was named ‘Lenore’ by the angels. Is there a rare and beautiful girl who resides in Paradise, whom the angels named ‘Lenore’?”
“Nevermore.”
“Whether you are a bird or an evil demon, I suppose that that word shall symbolise the ending of our acquaintanceship. You must return to the deathly storm that rages on the Night’s Plutonian shore! Do not leave behind any small black feather, as a token of the lie you have just spoken! I would rather remain forever lonely than to be in your company, so you had better quit that bust above my chamber door! Remove your beak that you pierced into my heart, and let your form disappear from off my door!”
“Nevermore.”
The Raven never paid heed to my command. It is still sitting – yes, it is still sitting! – perched on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. His eyes look like those of a dreaming demon. The lamplight above him throws his shadow on the floor, and my own soul floats above that shadow as it lies there on the floor.
It shall be lifted, nevermore!