le soul, this morbid man will not be long in taking the demonic anthem into his own heart. Borne upon the breath of Hell, this perverted hymn to despair will be repeated again and again, until the hearer is driven to madness. The siren song which tempted Ulysses to hurl himself into the sea could not have been a deadlier temptation than this nor could it have required more restraint. Hope does not fly of its own accord or die a natural death. We starve hope by fixing it on an object which cannot sustain it. When people die or dreams perish, we sometimes wish to bury our hopes with them. Despair comes with our invitation to shovel the first spadeful of earth onto the face of the deceased. As Christ descended into Hell to bring out those who had fallen therein, so will our hopes be resurrected and transfigured. If the demon of despair can drive out our hope in Christ, we are indeed lost. God does not insist or desire that we should mourn in agony of heart; rather, it is His wish that out of love for Him we should rejoice with laughter in our soul. Take away sin, and tears become superfluous; where there is no bruise, no ointment is required. Before the Fall, Adam shed no tears, and in the same way there will be no more tears after the resurrec tion from the dead, when sin has been destroyed. For pain, sorrow, and lamentation will then have fled away. [St. John Klimakos] (3)Contemplating the bird and its strange saying, the man's mind turns once more to thoughts of his lost love. As if in response to his painful recognition that she will not return again to his room, he suddenly imagines that there is an aura of mystical divinity about the Raven: "Then, me thought the air grew denser/ perfumed from an unseen censer/ Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor." (4) Enraptured by the angelic imagery in which he wishes to enshrine his dark visitor, the man concludes that God has sent this messenger with the gift of forgetf...
