EDGAR ALLAN POE 125 



* 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, ' Never more ! ' 



" ' Be that wondrous sign our parting, 

 Bird or fiend,' I shrieked upstarting. 

 ( Get thee back into the tempest 

 And the Night's Plutonian shore. 

 Leave no black plume as a token 

 Of that lie thy soul hath spoken, 

 Leave my loneliness unbroken. 

 Quit the bust above my door, 

 Take thy beak from out my heart, and 

 Take thy form from off my door/ 

 Quoth the raven, ' Never more.' " 



But let us turn to Shakespeare, whose imagina- 

 tion, as I have pointed out, seems to have been 

 attracted by the raven more than by any other bird. 

 When the ghosts of Julius Caesar and his murderer 

 are about to " meet at Philippi " on the fatal battle- 

 field, his friend Cassius notices, to his horror, that 

 the eagles, the natural guardians of the Roman 

 legion, have taken to flight : 



" And in their stead, the raven, crows, and kites 

 Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us 

 As we were sickly prey.'' 



