The Raven
EDGAR ALAN POE

It was in this catatonic and almost moribund state that a revelation arose within me. It started as a faint sensation, a simple questioning brought on the wind.

The call, akin to a melody, carried with it a feeling that is difficult for me to explain, for it was of the same stuff that oppresses the minds whose existence has been questioned; but gradually it turned into an obsessive thought, mutating until the thirst for answers became a necessity for survival. What unknown and inevitable force compels me to wander in the midst of this dreadful eternity? What false yearning for home makes me foolishly pursue a "nevermore"?

Nevermore. How chilling is the result of the perfect combination of these two simple words, creating a paradoxical equation, casting a terrible spell, dictating the worst of sentences, incomprehensible to the limited and fragile mortal existence.

If merely contemplating Beauty, the only form of the spiritual that is visible to mortals, often causes the sensitive man to succumb to burning fears, how would it be for this same mortal to understand the Eternal for a moment?

A vision of sacred terror is poured into the vessel of his existence, being thrown into the terrifying void of understanding, turned into a messenger of the gods, a prophet, a madman.