OH the pine-tree gaunt is the raven’s haunt
On the mountain’s misty crown,
Where the wild wind sings and the wild-wood swings,
And the cataract tumbles down!
And the mountain’s gloom has tinged his plume,
The waterfall’s flash his eye,
And the blast’s hoarse shout, as it rocks about
The cedar-top, tunes his cry.
When the Lightning rears his flashing spears
In his fierce, red, terrible wrath,
The raven awakes, and his shout outbreaks
In the gloom of his shadowy path.
Oh, never the blast doth its fury cast
Abroad but the raven is there!
As drives the ship in the hurricane’s grip,
He darts through the billowy air.
On the skeleton limb stands the raven grim,
Whetting his beak in glee,
While, quaking in fear, lies the bleeding deer,
For it knows what its doom shall be!
Oh the raven he hates, and never he mates
With the sunshine so merry and bright;
The ghoul of the woods, in their shadow he broods,
And his wing is a blot on the light.