Poems in Dark & Gothic

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of the crew
Catch albatrosses, vast birds of the seas,
Who follow, indolent companions of the voyage,
The vessel gliding on the bitter gulfs.

Scarcely have they deposited them on the planks,
Than these kings of the azure, awkward and ashamed,
Pitiably let their great white wings
Drag like oars beside them.

This winged traveller, how clumsy and weak he is!
He, lately so handsome, how comic and ugly!
One torments his beak with a pipe-stem,
Another mimics, limping, the cripple who flew!

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer;
Exiled on the ground in the midst of hooting,
His giant wings prevent him from walking.

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 visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more."

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 Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

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 visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more."