"Le Corbeau = The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe is a narrative poem first published in January 1845. A distraught student mourns the loss of his beloved Lenore when a mysterious raven visits him one December night. Perched upon a bust of Pallas, the bird speaks only one haunting word: "Nevermore." As the narrator questions the raven, its repetitive answer drives him from grief into madness, trapping him in a shadow from which his soul shall be lifted nevermore.