The Angel
1880
Norwood News and Crystal Palace Chronicle, 17 Jan 1880, p. 5
Once upon a midnight dreary, sat a maiden weak and weary,
Over curious, quaint embroidery, she worked with heart so sore,
While grim Death her life was sapping. Suddenly she heard a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at her attic door.
“’Tis no friend,” she sadly muttered, “tapping at my lonely door;
’Tis this wind, and nothing more.”
And the tatter’d, sad, uncertain rustling of the faded curtain
Thriller her—filled her with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that she, to still the beating of her heart, sprang up repeating,
“’Tis no friend entreating entrance at my poor, my lowly door.
Who comes so late entreating entrance?” Here she opened wide the door—
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all the soul within her burning;
Soon again she heard the tapping, something louder than before.
“Surely,” said she, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see what thereat is, and this mystery explore.”
Crawling faintly to the window, the mystery to explore—
Starting back in wondrous awe.
As she open flung the shutter, when, with outstretch’d wings and flutter,
Glided in the stateliest angel from the far-off heavenly shore;
And in streamed the cold moonlight. Pale she starteth back in fright,
To see that spirit bright, gliding in across the floor,
Gliding in amid the moonlight, till he stood against the door
Like a spirit saint of yore.
Then this spirit bright beguiling her warm, sad heart to smiling,
By the bright and glorious beauty of the countenance he wore.
She cries, “Art spirit, ghost? or of the heavenly host?
Come to serve a soul that’s lost?” Thus her fears she did outpour.
“Leave me not broken-hearted; do not leave me, I implore.”
Quoth the spirit, “Nevermore.”
And the phantom, standing lonely in the moonlight, speaking only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour,
Not another word he uttered, neither wings nor garments fluttered,
As the maiden gasping muttered, “Other friends have gone before:
On the morrow he will leave me, as all hopes have gone before.”
Said the angel, “Nevermore.”
Faint and fainter grows her breathing: mystic angel forms are wreathing
Silvery crowns of peace, forgiveness, as her soul doth upwards soar.
Free from sorrow and repining lies the maiden dead reclining,
With glad peace her face o’ershining, with the moon-beams sparkling o’er—
Moonbeams like a shining pathway leading to the heavenly shore—
With the angels evermore.
And the moonlight ever creeping where the maiden white lies sleeping—
Sleeping the sleep of death, where tears shall be no more;
And her eyes have all the seeming of a happy, peaceful dreaming,
And the moonbeams o’er her streaming throws her shadow on the floor,
Whilst her soul from out its shadows lies at rest for evermore—
Shall be lifted evermore.
This is one of several entries printed in the Norwood News and Crystal Palace Chronicle’s competition to create a poem in the style of Poe’s Raven. The four poems were divided into two Class I winners (The Bailiff and Hope), and two Class II winners (The Recollections of a “Two-Pair Back” and The Angel).
Return to the Quaint and Curious index for more pastiches and parodies of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.
