Imatges de pàgina
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1. ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
""Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this and nothing more."

2. Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore-

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name LenoreNameless here for evermore.

3. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, ""Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber doorSome late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;

This it is and nothing more.

4. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"-here I opened wide the door-
Darkness there and nothing more.

5. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore!"—
Merely this and nothing more.

6. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore-
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore-

"Tis the wind and nothing more.

7. Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

8. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no

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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, "Nevermore."
9. Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning-little relevancy bore;
For we can not help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

10. But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered-not a feather then he fluttered-
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before-
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."

Then the bird said "Nevermore."

11. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore

Of 'Never-nevermore.""

12. But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

13. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah! nevermore.
14. Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath
sent thee

Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the raven, "Nevermore." 15. "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchantedOn this home by horror haunted-tell me truly, I imploreIs there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me, I implore!" Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

16. "Prophet!" said I, “thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
17. "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, up-
starting-

"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, "Nevermore."

18. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!

LESSON II.-THE DIGNITY OF WORK.

1. THERE is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations which are truth.

2. All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms-up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine! Oh brother, if this is not "worship," then I say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky.

3. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellowworkmen there, in God's eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving: sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone surviving: peopling, they alone, the immeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind—as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, “WITH IT, MY SON, OR UPON IT!" Thou, too, shalt return home, in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor; doubt it not-if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the eternities and deepest deathkingdoms, art not an alien; thou every where art a denizen! Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain.

THOMAS CARLYLE,

LESSON III. THE DUTY OF LABOR,

1. LABOR is man's great function. The earth and the atmos phere are his laboratory. With spade and plow, with mining shafts, and furnaces, and forges, with fire and steam, amid the

noise and whirl of swift and bright machinery, and abroad in the silent fields, beneath the roofing sky, man was made to be ever working, ever experimenting. And while he and all his dwellings of care and toil are borne onward with the circling skies, and the shows of heaven are around him, and their infinite depths image and invite his thought, still in all the worlds of philosophy, in the universe of intellect, man must be a worker. He is nothing, he can be nothing, he can achieve nothing, fulfill nothing, without working.

2. Not only can he gain no lofty improvement without this, but without it he can gain no tolerable happiness. So that he who gives himself up to utter indolence finds it too hard for him, and is obliged in self-defense, unless he be an idiot, to do something. The miserable victims of idleness and ennui, driven at last from their chosen resort, are compelled to work, to do something; yes, to employ their wretched and worthless lives in-"killing time." They must hunt down the hours as their prey. Yes, time, that mere abstraction, that sinks light as the air upon the eyelids of the busy and the weary, to the idle is an enemy, clothed with_gigantic armor; and they must kill it, or themselves die. They can not live in mere idleness; and all the difference between them and others is, that they employ their activity to no useful end. They find, indeed, that the hardest work in the world is to do nothing.-DEWEY.

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