“Helen, thy beauty is to me”

“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

“Then this 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.”

“And all my days are trances,And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy dark eye glances,And where thy footstep gleams--In what ethereal dances,By what eternal streams!”

“And here, in thought, to thee-In thought that can alone, Ascend thy empire and so be A partner of thy throne, By winged Fantasy, My embassy is given, Till secrecy shall knowledge be In the environs of Heaven.”

“There are surely other worlds than this - other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude - other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?”

“Yes, Heaven is thine; but thisIs a world of sweets and sours;Our flowers are merely - flowers,And the shadow of thy perfect blissIs the sunshine of ours.”