“The Raven” (Epilogue)

Edgar Allan Poe

Whatever did happen to that Raven? That Raven who came rapping, rapping at the chamber door?

Did that man lay napping? Waiting to be washed away by the Night’s Plutonian waves lapping?

Did he hope for the lost Lenore? The lush, luxurious Lenore whom the Raven stated in a hush that would be seen “Nevermore?”

In that dark chamber in the bleak of December, that man did lie, so long that he believed that before long the Raven would die,

and return to the depths of whatever hell spawned him. The heated, hell-fire depths of whatever hell did spawn him.

Only after the dripping of time did the drapes seem to rise, a golden ray of Heaven came slipping,

Slipping in as a sharp sliver across the floor of the dark chamber which was still filled with the putrid air of bleak December.

It rose along the man like the finger of an angel, tracing, pacing around the floor, waiting for the man or Raven to seek their place on the Night’s Plutonian shore.

The man must have felt the warmth, the thick lick of warmth which he hadn’t felt permeate the skin of his kin since he last saw Lenore.

Lenore? Could the warmth be the embrace of the lost Lenore? The light is the face of the embrace of Lenore?

The dreaded thing began filling his heart, painfully expanding its walls attempting to push out the tyrannical darkness residing there from the start.

“What is this feeling that’s peeling at the brimming hole in my heart? ’Tis be hope of my lovely lost Lenore returning the lost fragment of my heart?”

He lifted his heavy head, turning towards the light resting on an air bed. The dread building, light scalding the eyes of the hoping man.

Then from its perch upon the bust, the Raven spreads its wings beginning to search for flight at the sight of the light.

Its scream forms a horrendous beam of reality which stabs the ears and threaten to rip the thin seam of sanity,

and from its scream it shatters the sense of hope as the Raven’s scream forms a horrendous beam, tossing the man back across the floor

as the Raven reminds him of his message: “Nevermore”