Quoth the Raven (N)evermore . . .

"would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified - more supremely noble than this very poem - this poem per se - this poem which is a poem and nothing more - this poem written solely for the poem's sake."

"The struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness - this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted - has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic."

"music in its various modes of meter, rhythm, and rhyme is of so vast a moment in poetry as never to be wisely rejected . . . there can be little doubt that in the union of poetry with music in its popular sense we shall find the widest field for its poetic development."


(Edgar Allen Poe, "The Poetic Principle")


"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 lamp-light 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!"


(Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven")