 far more desired for witness in the play of the druids than are all the circles of moon fantasy in the forests of moon mist floor in the fog of the subconscious there hang great and entwining branches that point strange fingers toward you and seem to whisper in the midnight breeze art thou a doubter of my work you will hear the story of such in a moment when theater Osborne creates the role of Edgar Allen pole in the story of the solitary genius a man surfaced with a black and morbid and horrible obsession was again the blind poet Homer who said genius is a state between heaven and hell and he who shall dare reside will neither be understood nor yet have mundane understand he will never be forgiven nor will he eat suck forgiving he shall always stand solitary and alone to be scorned yet have no wit for scorning such was the precarious estate of the tragic Edgar Allen pole within the world and convolutions of his brain they're sprang dazzling flashes of a pure white light of fantasy and the times in contrast their formed eddies and whirlpools and turgid thoughts of black despair and melancholia he was a man within himself a man neither understood no understanding that is with but one exception there was but one beautiful and ethereal light of his existence the light he immortalized forever an eternal and the sweet and pathetic lyrics of Annabelle Lee that was a celestial name he gave to her of course her earthly name was Virginia Clem if you're a wonder must inspire such music and I beg of you to continue your wonder my dear no no no please don't stop playing and melody of yours fills this room of our little house until it becomes as the marble halls of ire how many times have I told you about flattery turning my head do you suppose quaffery might turn your head sufficiently for me to kiss your lips oh my dear it is so silly and so wonderful and I love you so no dear in Virginia if love were the only corn of the realm none could be as well as we and I would buy you gowns of late Jews of the most crisis and you should live in a palace of Italian marble with 40,000 one servants to do your bidding oh it reminds me of the butcher called a day asking again about his bill he threatened to cut off our credit oh if I were only st. George and that infernal butcher a dragon how I would thoroughly enjoy steering him upon my spirit what did you tell him whether I could tell him tomorrow perhaps the next day perhaps the day after I had no money in the house you know yes I know I wonder why poets must always be forced to starve freeze and eat cheese and get it like a mother we shan't always starve and freeze after someday you'll be famous oh I just know what I'm sure of it yes you're as sure of it as you are of tomorrow's breakfast darling there's no need to become disheartened there's no reason for us to be unhappy and scared. Look what we have to be able to have a meal dude linen moldy bread and a shack over our heads that even capital would be this great we have a lot of my dear freedom freedom. Look at that bird sitting on that also out there I think it's a way to know yes on the side of his life of black and ugly but it's free of the space that the heavens belong to him he can fly under the sun but I'll bet he can't write poetry we can't but you can his wings given flight but your poetry gives you flight that's a lot beyond the life of all that silly old bird yes perhaps beyond your life that you should live and beyond his life there will be nothing your life our lives they shall be forever more and his life shall be never more never more close to Raven never more Virginia excuse me I'm going to my room to my room in Virginia don't disturb me the Raven is going to quote never more and Edgar Allan Poe in that one word I promise you shall live forever more inspiration as you went to his room sat at his desk and pondered head in hands just how we should plan this point he did it all rationally with sober reason not in abandoned drunken madness as it has been said this was a frenzy which all poets know the poetic frenzy of inspiration drove him on and held his thoughts to their purpose but it was that he planned first the length and the impression and tone of appointment planned the refrain and finally he wrote the last part first so that he would have some definite entity taught which to build in this way Edgar Allan Poe worked in that poor cheap little house and so grew those 108 clients of mournful and never ending remembrance the raven upon the midnight jury while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and furious volume of forgotten lore while he nodded nearly napping suddenly there came is some visitor tapping at my chamber door only this nothing more it was in the bleak December and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor vainly he had sought to borrow from his books a cease of sorrow sorrow for the lost Lenore of the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore but presently his soul grew stronger and hesitating then no longer he opened wide the door nothing more and the only word there spoken was the whispered word then you are this he whispered and an echo murmured back the word nearly this and nothing more back into the chamber turning all his soul within him burning soon again he heard it tapping somewhat louder than before open here he flung the shutter when with many a flirt and flutter in their step to stately raven of the saintly days of yore and perched upon the chamber door perched and fat and nothing more so like crests be shorn and shaven our sure no craving gas like grim and ancient raven from the nightly shore then quote the raven much he marveled this ungainly foul to hear this course so plainly though its answer little meaning little relevancy bore but the raven sitting lonely upon the door spoke only that one word profit raven tell this soul with sorrow laden if within the distant aid and it shall cross the fainted maiden whom the angel named the north quote the raven but that word our sign of parting get the back into the tempest and the night's plutonium shore take thy beat from out my heart and take thy form from off my door then quote the raven and the raven never flitting still is sitting just above the chamber door and his eyes have all the meaning of a demon that is dreaming and the lamp light or him streaming throws his shadow on the floor and the soul from out that shadow shall be lifted they bought it same unfortunate my dear no more moly bread and cheese that even a microcuse all Virginia my dearest we're reaching it what's the matter darling what is it? didn't they buy it after all? yes Virginia they bought it for all rights privileges publications and copies for your poem The Raven please find enclosed check in the amount in the amount of ten dollars Virginia we are rich indeed never more the beautiful Annabelle Lee the sweet chime of music that was to Edgar Allen pro the very essence of life died out upon the morning air and there by the wild sea pounding and in the presence of Heaven's angels he buried her then his footsteps turned the predestined track let him on to a new and strange experience in the ancient scroll it is written the angel Israel gives to his chosen only once in ten thousand years the power of vision into the future Edgar Allen po the chosen of this angel had caught that prophetic crystal and the realms above had held it guarded it in his heart and now he stands without the portals of the strange and foreboding house of Roderick Usher in his own words ear him tell in the flash of genius the most sparkling narrative that mortal ear has ever caught as I approached the ancient domain of usher I hence the peculiar atmosphere one which had no affinity to the air of heaven but which reached up from the decayed trees in the gray walls and the silent town the pestilence and mystic vapor dull sluggish faintly discernible and led me and I became aware of a great factor or crack which extending from the roof of the building in front made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it became lost in the sullen waters of the town I crossed the heavy bridge of the moat and went filled with a common feeling for the ancient portal of the house of Roderick Usher I wish shelter and warmth tell your master that an old friend has come to call that his name is Edgar Allen po very well you may come in you will wait here in the hall while I inform Mr. Usher of your life as the devils serve and disappeared into the gloom of the long vaulted corridor by gaze wandered to the tomb like structure of my surroundings I say to like only to describe the decaying furnishings and architecture in which I felt strangely confined and such reports hung loosely and dull within cracked pub web frame greening mass of armor peered out from the shadows a great circular staircase wound and coil like some black ugly serpents into the reaches of the room Oh Edgar Allen po Roderick upon my life I've never been so surprised let me look at you it is you isn't it it is Edgar Allen po not some specter come to these halls of us it is truly I rub it and I think it is only within his hunger and cold which lend me this I hope I haven't included intruded my good man let me say that no visitor to this house has ever been more welcome than yourself over come we'll not stand here in the draft of the hall we repair to the warmth and comfort of my studio will you allow me to lead the way my friend Edgar Allen po now now if you will comfort yourself with a fire the great chair we'll talk and I think we have much to say haven't you have much and I have little but tell me Roderick how's it been have you been well since you've asked I can only tell you the truth Edgar I trust it shan't frighten you or disturb your visit I fear that I am falling air to the same sickness which has held my sister in bondage are you speaking of Madeline do you mean to tell me this is ill oh yes but I can't conceive of illness striking such duty of both body and soul that is Madeline the Madeline that I knew life is a strange thing Edgar were you excuse me yes come in well silly what is it I beg your forgiveness for this intrusion yes yes I have just returned from the room of the lady Madeline sir she she's worse she wants me to come to her no sir I beg to inform you sir that the lady Madeline is dead for the servant of us are pronounced the red words the lady Madeline is dead slowly the great ancestral clock the powering the minutes and hours the past in morbid reverie the bells of the tower still swayed in a half-crazed dance and I found myself standing with Roderick Usher within the subterranean copperline bolt that was now the tomb of his lovely sister the lady Madeline Roderick Roderick will you not leave her side now the gaze upon death too long my friend is destructive to the soul of the living but Edgar like I can't believe it somehow my mind refuses to accept the truth this is my sister Roderick this was your sister look at me Roderick and listen life is the end death is the start and only through death may life begin the survival constructive value of this life is the only medium to which man civilization empires they achieve the ultimate of perfection in the fulfillment of the two cardinal laws of God birth and death do we only see beauty in its most perfect form all things must end Robert before they can begin and not his consolation not his condolence do I say to you that death is the life of everlasting peace and triumph that before the dawn of that perfect era of creation shall break before we stupid infinitesimal minutiae a commonplace episode shall find the perfect karma of achievement peace without war metamorphosis of death must decay this flesh of a lot and germinate the cell of new life that shall be forever without the power of death but Edgar surely these things I know Roderick how I know why but I do know them as surely as I know that man shall die so shall civilization but as the selfish forms of social organization shall fall so also shall fall the house of usher and then we'll come the miracle of birth and the phenomenon of everlasting life Roderick usher last of the symbolic line that reaches far back into the history of civilization sinks deeper into his morbid shell only his music the strange half mad innuendo of sound that seems to emanate from the depths of his soul continues on to the murky nights and lyric days to console him then knowing that human companionship alone can hope to break this introverted mania Edgar Alan Paul works in the point of solitary usher and diverts him from his vigil of lone sorrow Roderick Roderick you must put an end to that means of self-portrait Roderick don't go mad and I shall go mad Bobby and soul can't Edgar Edgar my sister is dead and your sister's brother shall also become dead if you don't see this vigil of ones and self-attacement have you ever heard the voices of silence have you ever listened to the words of condemnation echoing from the shadowed corners from rooms from hallways no don't get away to this is no hysteria I'm not mad not insane the voices I have heard were not the mumblings of imagination I tell you Edgar Paul they were real repeating the same words over and over word he is not dead he's buried alive in the name of God Roderick look as I am looking please I am seeing if your eyes do not see his mind and I am truly the rest of reason mad insane the door because I fell with a mad shuddering upon the now lifeless coughs of the serum and in full existence from that chamber and from that mansion I fled to gas and suddenly they're shocked along the path a wild light and while I gave that crack in the castle rapidly widened my brain reeled and I saw the mighty world rushing asunder and they came then through the brilliant that can come only from capacity a strange and perfecting sight of things to come you have been listening to obsession