In the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously
carried out:-
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."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
The effect of the denouement being thus provided for, I
immediately drop the fantastic for a tone of the most profound
seriousness- this tone commencing in the stanza directly following the
one last quoted, with the line,
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only, etc.
From this epoch the lover no longer jests- no longer sees anything
even of the fantastic in the Raven's demeanour. He speaks of him as
a "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore," and
feels the "fiery eyes" burning into his "bosom's core.
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