My Favourite Poem

My Favourite Poem

It’s been a long day. Am still in the office with so much more to do. At the moment, I just have to take a 10 – 15 minutes break. If only my financial situation was much healthier than it is, the 15 minutes break could have had its venue in San Francisco Coffee, or maybe Delifrance or Cinnabon. But the combination of my restraint finances and the hurricane of work has made me to settle for the coffee in the office pantry. A nice blend of Nescafe and Milo should do the trick. Hmmm....

Anyhow, I would like to share this poem with you. Chances are, you woudln’t find this poem a stranger. I was first introduced to this poem from watching The Simpsons Halloween special when I was in my secondary school. There is something dark and gothic about it that makes it very appealing. For instance, the crow’s queer repetition of the phrase ‘never more’ when faced with the narrator. This would seem queer until you begin to wonder whether the bird is saying anything at all (‘Never more’), or is it just a subject of the narrator’s own failing sanity i.e. Is he hearing things or is the bird really saying those words? It subsequently inclines the reader to feel sympathy for the narrator, yet at the same time makes the reader wonder whether or not the evil presence is real in the shape of the crow. Either way, it subtly portrays the mental state of a depressed person trying to cope with the loss of a loved one.

I once memorised the whole poem for my school’s poem reading competition while I was doing my A-Levels in the UK. The judges must have been impressed that a non-English person (some of them were even impressed that I could speak English as a matter of fact!) could memorise such a long poem that I even qualified to the latter round of the competition. Come to think of it, funny how such a simple thing as poem could bring back memories from the past...

I’ve included excerpts of the poem here. For a complete, long version of The Raven, click here.

And if you want something more fanciful, you can go here for impressions of the poem with pictures. This is a good one.

Enjoy!

The Raven

[First published in 1845]

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.'

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 named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.