Alone along the grisly timbers and stone filled wooded trails
The poet sat against a fence and considered all his ails

The fence of stone and iron, wrought- something like his life
Cold and gray and sharp and hard, filled with pain and strife

The moon was dim when should be bright and full it hung, but low
When pen to parchment did inscribe, the darkness, then, did grow

He wrote of love, and loss, and life, and held his shaking quill
His eyes he sharped, senses tapped, when noticed something killed

In the light that offered but few shapes he could discern
He this night would be the first of sinister deeds to learn

A body, dark, stained in blood lay there upon the path
Snow white skin, night black hair, distressed and thickly mat

He stared and sought for clues or keys to solve this sudden scene
But then the sight sent him chills through bones and spine and spleen

Her hand had moved, and towards him raised, clutching empty air
Her head turned then, her eyes locked his with cold and deadly glare

The body rose, arms extended, and shook with violent force
The sight was shocking, but understated, what came thereaft was worse

Discarding robe, dark wings burst forth and seemed then so possessed
Dark black feathers and dark black eyes, the shape him did impress

Whether this the poet saw we may consider forever more
Though unknown he wrote at length his ode to her: Lenore