Through my ivy fretted casement filtered in a tremulous note
From the tall and stately linden where a Robin swelled his throat:—
Querulous, quaker breasted Robin, calling quaintly for his mate!
Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber Night-mare ridden,
With the memory of that Dire Demon in my central Fire
On my eye's interior mirror like the shadow of a Fate!
X.
Ah! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap,
And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep;
But around its very centre, where the Demon Face had shone,
Forked Shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with spectral finger
To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carved and olden—
And I bowed, and said, "All Power is of God, of God alone!"
The above poor imitation of Poe's poetic chef d'œuvre circulated through the United States for some time as the prototype of The Raven, and although the whole affair was treated as a fabrication by all persons capable of judging, it was received by a number of persons, according to the allegation of its avowed concocter, as the genuine production of
