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Kubla Raven
Alexander "Sasha" Volokh
("The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
in the style of "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
I sat within my room one night
And pondered on a book of lore;
My heart was filled with deep regret
While I tried vainly to forget
The radiant Lenore.
My mind was overcome with fear
(It was December of last year)
And in the hearth were many embers -- dead --
Which cast their dying ghosts upon the floor,
And throbbing aches were pounding in my head
(Or maybe they were knocks upon the door).
But oh! that tapping sound when I was dreaming,
Asleep upon my chair, so weak and weary!
A savage sound, a sound that had the seeming
Of angels or of seraphim redeeming
Which came to me upon a midnight dreary!
And, as I had no strength to even mutter,
I set myself to opening the shutter:
A stately Raven came into the room,
And sat upon a bust so he could loom
Over my books, my fire, my spirit sore,
Exhausted from the quest to find Lenore:
And I could scarcely keep myself from smiling
When I saw his demeanor so beguiling.
I asked him, "Will you flee, like my emotions?
And in the land of Gilead, is there balm?"
And then I asked him, staying very calm,
"Have you perceived Lenore across the oceans?"
And when I asked this bird about Lernore,
His ominous voice answered, "Nevermore!"
Then the air around grew denser,
In my velvet cushioned seat;
I knew who possessed the censer,
For I heard the seraph's feet.
I felt a shock when, from that bird of yore,
I heard that tragic word, that "Nevermore"!
A Raven sat upon a bust,
Telling me about Lenore --
My soul was turning into dust
And so I asked him off the bust
And out my chamber door.
But he refused to leave me
And fly into the night;
If he had gone away, believe me,
I'd rejoice with all my might;
Happiness would never lack.
Upon these joys I turn my back
And then I cry, Alack! Alack!
His shaven crest, his feathers black!
Embodiment of sin and vice!
This misery I cannot bear
And I will fall into despair
And never enter Paradise.
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