gay, a subtle change confessed,
And in her attitude a vague unrest
Betrayed a world of feelings unexprest.
A shade less light her footsteps in the dance,
And sometimes now the Raven's curious glance
Her soul with terrors new and strange oppressed.

Grief shared is lighter, none had she to share
Burdens that grew almost too great to bear,
For Redstar sometimes seemed to look askance,
And sought, they said, to win another breast.
Winona feigned to laugh, but in her heart
The rumor rankled like a poisoned dart.
Sometimes she almost thought the Raven guessed
The guilty secrets that her thoughts oppressed,
And sought, whene'er she could, to shun his sight.
Apart from human kind, still more and more,
The Raven dwelt, and human speech forbore.
And once upon a wild tempestuous night,
When all the demons of the earth and air
Like raging furies were embattled there,
She, peering fearfully, amid the swarm
Flitting athwart the flashes of the storm,
By fitful gleams beheld the Raven's form.
To her he spoke not since the fateful night
His chosen comrade passed from human sight,
Save only once, forgetting he was by
And half forgetting too her care and woes,
Unto her lips some idle jest arose.
"Winona," said the Raven, in a tone
Of stern reproof that on the instant froze
All thought of mirth, and when she met his eye,
As by a serpent's charm it fixed her own;
The hate and anger of a soul intense
Were all compressed in that remorseless glance,
The coldly cruel meaning of whose sense
Smote down the shield of her false innocence.
She strove to wrest her eye from his in vain,
Held by that gaze ophidian like a bird,
As in a trance she neither breathed nor stirred.
And gazing thus an icy little lance,
Smaller than quill from wing of humming-bird,
Shot from his eyes, and a keen stinging pain
Sped through the open windows of her brain.
Her senses failed, she sank upon the ground,
And darkness veiled her eyes; she never knew
How long this was, but when she slowly grew
Back from death's counterfeit, and looked around,
So little change was there, that it might seem
The scene had been but a disordered dream.
The Raven sat in his accustomed place,
Smoking his solitary pipe; his face,
A gloomy mask that none might penetrate,
Betrayed no sign of anger, grief, or hate;
Absorbed so deep in thoughts that none might share,
He noted not Winona's presence there;
From his disdainful lips the thin blue smoke
From time to time in little s