Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...
The poem begins on a cold, dark night as the narrator, lost in sorrow over his lost love Lenore, hears a sudden tapping at his chamber door. Is it merely a visitor—or something more?
At first, the tapping seems ordinary, yet it fills the narrator with unease. As he opens the door, he finds only darkness. But soon, the sound returns...
“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”
The arrival of the mysterious tapping sets the stage for the eerie presence of the raven. Is it a real visitor, or a manifestation of the narrator’s own grief?
Continue your journey to Descent Into Madness.