The Raven-Winged Hours Video (MV)

The tumult has subsided
The lights have died away
And the stranger stands alone

It is a day of days
A day of all days either to live or die
I am dying, yet shall I live
This is indeed no dream

Ill-fated and illustrious man
Bewildered in the brilliancy
Of thine own imagination
And fallen in the flames
Again I behold thee
Once more thy form hath risen before me
Not-oh! As thou art
In the cold valley and shadow
But as thou shouldst be

There are surely other worlds than this
I remember-- ah! How should I forget
The deep midnight, the silent flight
Of the raven-winged hours

Thy visionary hours
A wasting away of life
The overflowings of
Thine everlasting energies

And now it was
That we wrapped our spirits in dreaming

And now it was
That we wrapped our spirits
In dreaming

There was a dim mist over all the earth
We were slowly drifting down
Seeking in vain the treasure
Which was to be found, alas
Only within the abyss

It was a happiness to wonder
It was a happiness to dream
And then-I felt a sable spirit
Enkindling within me
And then there fell
A shadow on my soul

Misery is manifold
The wretchedness of the earth
Is multiform
Over-reaching the wide horizon
As the rainbow
Out of joy is sorrow born
The memory of past bliss
Is the anguish of today

The poets ponder piningly
Upon the ancient days
Blissful days
When blue rivers ran undammed
Between hills unhewn
Into far forest solitudes
Primeval and unexplored

A fateful stain of melancholy
Is entwined in the perfection
Of the beautiful

Most fearfully, fearfully
Dreams are no more
In the place of hope
Is the bitterness of despair

With the heart of a fiend
I cursed the days and the hours
And the bitter moments
Which seemed to lengthen and lengthen
As your gentle life declined
Like shadows
In the dying of the day
Ah Death, the spectre
Which sits at all feasts
So grew in my heart
The dread of that evil hour
Thus, in time it became
Painful to love

And thus, joy faded into horror
And the most beautiful became
The most hideous
That grave wherein my brightest hope lies

Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale

Yes! Tears are gathering in those eyes, and see
"Thou hast conquered," he cries out; "so let it be!"
Him so essentially apart
From all other human beings

Beings like adders which writhe out
From the eyes of grinning masks
My spirit is writhing in fire, in delirium
Flaring and flickering tongues
Of emerald and violet fire
Beams of unnatural glory
In a thousand reflections
Like cataracts of molten silver

I yearn to hear the story
Of your passing
Through the dim regions
In the dark Valley
Of the river of Silence

To dream has been the business of my life
I have framed for myself, as you see
A bower of dreams

Awaking from the long day
Into the very regions of fairyland
Into a palace of imagination

There is a remembrance of aerial forms
Of sounds, musical yet sad
A memory like a shadow

I, ill of health and buried in gloom
I, living within my own heart
And addicted to painful regrets

To muse for long hours
To become absorbed in a shadow
To lose myself, for an entire night
In the embers of a fire

To dream away whole days
Over the perfume of a flower
To lose all sense of earthly existence

And the evening closes in upon me
And then the darkness comes and goes
And the day again dawns
And mists of a second night are gathering around
And still I sit motionless in my solitude

And now it was
That I wrapped my spirit in dreams
Now it was that
In twilight, I bethought of the days to come
For one to whose exalted intellect
There would be no more poison'd knowledge

Wearied at heart with anxieties
In dreamy delirium
I succumbed to the fierce fever
And the stars of my fate
Faded from heaven
And the earth grew dark
And its figures pass'd by me like flitting shadows
And then-- all was mystery and terror

And now again all is void
Dust has returned to dust
The sense of Being
Has utterly departed
And in its stead there reigns
Instead of any Thing
Only a point in the vague infinity

For he who is not
For that which has no form
For that which has no thought
For that which is soulless
For all this nothingness
Yet for all this immortality
The grave is still a home
And the corrosive hours, companions