Shadow Of The Raven

The haunting presence of a raven, daunts the mind of a soul.

Beware the claws of a brath, 

Slitting throats of men amain,

Under the whims of the wrath, 

Amongst those tenfold slain.  

Endless woes of the fallen men, 

Abreast the baleful dern untold, 

Seaming with wounds by the fen,

Amidst unforgiven sins twofold.  

Thou the foul reaper of the dead,

I shall not bow before thine eyes,

Staring with reddish hue of dread,

Upon the ghastly and thester skies. 

O thine unwant'd and selfish onset,

Leading the listless souls to doom,

Without the shine of a glary sunset,  

  Beside the loudest wails of gloom.    

O thine unfulfill'd thirst for blood,

Where children and women dwine,

Within the grip of a teeming flood, 

  And pluck'd with beaks that twine.    

Whether I should thuswise lie,

In the grasping throes of death,

Or ween myself that I am to die, 

I bethink in my gasping breath.

In the forsaken lee of the rills,

No foreseen lave of me shall be,

For his gory wings glide by hills, 

O'er a trickle of dust blowing me. 

Curs'd it be the hean swine,

Agrising the earth at night, 

In the mounds forbye mine,

Forwhy of the lingering wight.

O hark the caws of the craven---

Bearing the shadow of the raven!

(Glossary)