Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over Planck and Madame Curie, Avogadro and of Bohr —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with stilted gait and stutter,
In there came another nutter of the cock-sure ways of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door —
Perched upon a bust of Popper just above my chamber door —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this upstart bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance he wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient maven wandering from the Nightly shore —
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth Pedrone "Screw Niels Bohr."
Much I marvelled this ungainly don to hear discourse so plainly,
Though his answer little meaning — little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing dean above his chamber door —
Dean or don upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Screw Niels Bohr."
But Pedrone still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of don, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous don of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous don of yore
Meant in croaking "Screw Niels Bohr."
"Be that word our sign of parting, friend or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting —
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth Pedrone "Screw Niels Bohr."
And Pedrone, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Popper just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a tyro's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my mind from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be sated — Livermore!