raven quotes

John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent; Your locks were like the raven, Your bonie brow was brent; But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson my jo. Burns

- Robert Burns
  'John  Anderson my  Jo', stanza1. 1788  'Auld Lang Syne', stanza1. This is the most familiar version of an older, traditional song, reworked by Burns.

There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

-James Russell Lowell
  'A Fable for Critics'.

The sad presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.

- Christopher Marlowe
c.1589  The Jew of Malta (published1633), act 2, sc.1.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smil'd.

-John Milton
  Comus,  A Mask, l.248^51.

'Takethy beak fromout my heart, and takethy formfrom off my door!' Quoth the raven,'Nevermore.'

- EdgarAllan Poe
  'The Raven', stanza17. In American Review, Feb1845.