The Dove has had a considerable circulation in the United States. It is by the Rev. J. W. Scott, D.D., and is stated to have been written upon his wife's death. It appeared first in 1874, and is in many lines, more a repetition than a parody of The Raven: the first three, the fourteenth and the last stanzas will suffice to show the style of the piece:—
Once upon a storm-night dreary, sat I pond'ring, restless, weary,
Over many a text of Scripture, helped by ancient sages' lore,
Anxious, nervous, far from napping; suddenly there came a tapping!
As of some one gently rapping—rapping at my chamber-door.
Night like this 'tis scarce a visitor, tapping at my chamber-door? This, I thought, and nothing more.
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember, glimmer'd ghostly on the floor:
Earnestly I wished the morrow; vainly had I sought to borrow
From my Bible ease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Annore—
For a saintly, radiant matron, whom the angels name Annore Lately wife, now wife no more.
