Page:The Raven; with literary and historical commentary.djvu/22

 8 was of course a corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt, and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel in connection with r as the most producible consonant.

"The sound of the refrain being thus determined it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search," avers Poe, "it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word 'Nevermore.' In fact it was the very first which presented itself."

Thus the author of The Raven would lead his readers to believe that he was irresistibly impelled to select for his refrain the word "Nevermore," but, evidently, there are plenty of eligible words in the English language both embodying the long sonorous o in connection with r as the most producible consonant, and of sorrowful import. A perusal of Pike's poem, however, rendered it needless for Poe to seek far for the needed word, for, not only does the refrain to Isadore contain the antithetic word to never, and end with the ōre syllable, but in one line of the poem are "never" and "more," and in others the words "no more," "evermore," and "for ever more"; quite sufficient, all must admit, to have supplied the analytic mind of our poet with what he needed.

Thus far the theme, the refrain, and the word selected for the refrain, have been somewhat closely paralleled in the poem by Pike, whilst over the