JOEY'S RAVEN

Once upon a midnight dreary,

In a bleak December,

I pondered weak and weary.

While I napped in my bed chamber I heard a gentle rapping.

A rapping from my chamber door,

Or a rapping on my window pain.

No wait, could the rapping be my closet door?

I waited once more to hear the rapping at the closet door.

I look once more for my baby bear upon my chest.

Deep into the darkness peering,

Long I stared like a deer in head lights wondering, fearing, even doubting.

Silence broken rapping growing ever louder.

Only light upon my chamber shone from yonder window panes across my chamber floor.

Sound of tapping could it be my closet door?

Could it even be a monster?

A monster lurking in my closet

Behind my closet door in my bed chamber rapping and tapping at the door.

All my soul within me burning, burning with fear for the monster

Lurking behind my closet door.

Wait, I heard a whisper,

Not a rapping, not a tapping,

Not a word coming from my closet door.

Once again a whisper and now it comes from my chamber window.

I sprang out of bed to the window sill

I threw open the curtain,

And to my surprise an ebony bird,

A RAVEN rapping, tapping and whispering words upon my window.

Was not a monster in my chamber closet,

But a dirty fowl upon my window sill.

Nether friend nor foe

I tried to shoo the evil bird from my window sill.

I tried to shoo the fowl upon my sill away to only hear it say’ “Never”

I motioned once more by tapping on the window pain,

Tapping as hard as it is tempered,

But still the black upon my window sill cries out “Never.”

I ran down the stairs after exiting my chamber,

Pulled open the door to the outside.

The horror, the fantastic terrors of the night.

I stepped into darkness and ran to the window outside.

I looked to the heavens and saw upon my chamber window sill the ebony foul,

The RAVEN looking not at me, but down at me.

 It, the Raven, smiled with the grave and stern decorum of countenance it wore.

 I looked upon the ground to see what I could find in the night

 a rock or stick that was once part of a branch part of a tree.

Ah, I found it, a stick as hard as hickory, and as strong as hard

As I could I throw that stick of hickory at that black beast.

The window broken, the RAVEN broke flight without even a word,

 Without even a rap or a tap. 

No word from the bird, but I said a word, “Never”

I ran back to the house back to my bed chamber.

I looked upon my window pain, broken.

I looked upon my chamber floor and saw the pieces of my window pain.

In the shadows of my chamber floor the stick of hickory.

I wiped my eyes and, then yelled, “Ma, a tree branch fell and broke my window!!”