[Verse 1] I shot up screaming, knocked my chair against the floor A devil in black feathers perched above my door "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting Fiend, I mean a devil — something wicked to the core Leave no plume, no pallid feather, drifting on this storm-cracked night Pallid means gone-white, like moonlight bled of every ounce of light [Chorus] "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Get out, get gone, I'm begging — don't you perch here anymore But the answer comes like thunder, comes the same as came before One black word, no second verse Nevermore, nevermore [Verse 2] I ordered him to vanish in the tempest and the black The Plutonian shore that spawned him, told him swiftly to go back I wanted wind, not wingbeats, wanted silence, wanted peace But the bird don't do requests — his answer never seems to cease And that's the joke inside the horror, the thing that makes it bite He's only got one phrase to give, and it fits every single night [Chorus] "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Get out, get gone, I'm begging — don't you perch here anymore But the answer comes like thunder, comes the same as came before One black word, no second verse Nevermore, nevermore [Verse 3] Now the fury drains out of me, now the fever breaks to cold And the Raven, never flitting — flitting means a quick retreat he never shows — Still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming Lamp-light throws his shadow stretching, pooling dark across the floor A shape of grief that's grown a body, spreading wider than before [Bridge] That shadow's not just darkness, friend — that shadow's what I carry Mournful, never-ending, it's the weight I didn't bury Poe said the bird becomes a symbol once the telling's through Remembrance with no mercy, and the shadow's always you [Outro] And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore Shall be lifted — nevermore [Final Chorus] "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Get out, get gone, I'm begging — don't you perch here anymore But the answer comes like thunder, comes the same as came before One black word, no second verse Nevermore, nevermore
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