Midnight Raven: a Splendidly Overdone Poem

The midnight raven does not chatter. He screeches and waits upon the gallows for a hanged man’s eye -a tasty morsel for a daemon. For a raven is a fine gentleman who feasts only on the foulest carrion. This feathered fiend who lurks pays no heed to the Holy. He would sit upon the heaven’s gates if only to purloin a child’s soul. “Hark!” he cries, “I bring ill tidings, I am the emissary for the ashen horse!” Oft on a dreary autumn morn the harbinger tap-tap-taps on a window and all inside do quake in terror for Death draws near to collect due payment. In the end it is the raven who laughs mockingly upon the bodies.