The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe is a narrative poem first published in January 1845. It tells of a grief-stricken lover mourning his lost Lenore when a mysterious raven arrives at his chamber, perching on a bust of Pallas and speaking only one haunting word: "Nevermore." As the narrator questions the bird, he descends from melancholy into madness, trapped between his desire to forget and his compulsion to remember, while the raven's shadow darkens his soul.