The Raven

Amy loaned me Poe & Fanny, a historical novel that fictionally fleshes out Poe's relationship with the poet Frances "Fanny" Osgood. (Poe, of course, had infamously married his first cousin "Sissy" when she was only thirteen.) So far, I'm loving it although I wish it were a tad darker (in the gothic sense). Here's the first stanza from Poe's The Raven, which made him an international sensation when it was first printed 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.'

Image: Hardcover edition of Poe and Fanny