Tell me truly, I implore-- Is there-- is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!

Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day; or the agonies which are have their origins in ecstasies which might have been.

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee-- Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quothe the Raven, "Nevermore.

Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors ... on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.

In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.

A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul.