ONCE UPON 24 TIMES: STORY XXIV

Story the Twenty-Fourth

The Golden Key

EVERMORE

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
suddenly, there came a tapping as I nodded, nearly napping,
came a rapping and a tapping, whapping at my chamber door...
"'Tis the wind, and nothing more..."

Ah, distinctly I remember... It was in the bleak December,
and each dying Yule-log ember wrought its ghost upon the floor...
and the silken, sad, uncertain, unsure rustling of the curtain
thrilled me, filled me with fantastic feelings never felt before...
"'Tis the wind, and nothing more..."

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal person ever dreamt before...
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
and, past the bust of Pallas Athena above my chamber door,
I had crossed the threshold floor.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning
with the stern and grave decorum of the countenance she wore;
nothing further then I uttered, not at all the curtains fluttered,
when I found a golden wrought key hanging on my chamber door
with th'inscription: EVERMORE.

Here, we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
ever yet was blessed with seeing a key at their chamber door
with such name as EVERMORE.

This surprising sight, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
made me think of something uttered since the sacred days of yore:
Surely, some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
followed fast and followed faster both the lock and key once bore;
though to dirges turned the hope, there is somewhere a lock in store
with the same writing: EVERMORE.

This intrigue was still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
and that fiery train of thought had burned into my bosom's core.
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
on the cushions' velvet lining, that the lamplight gloated o'er:
"Shall I know it nevermore?"

Presently, my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
I sought all over the chamber, from the threshold of the door;
"Surely," said I, "sure that is something at the window lattice,
let us see thus, what there at, is, and this mystery explore..."
'Twas a casket at my windowsill, through frosted panes: it bore
that inscription: EVERMORE.

Open wide I flung the shutter, among flurry and curtain-flutter, 
seized the casket in my power and brought it then in of doors.
Excited, and sitting lonely on my cushions, I spoke only
of an answer that much meaning, lots of relevancy, bore:
why this writing, "EVERMORE?"

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing,
as the key I probed, confessing, into the keyhole once more.
Stunned that it did fit perfectly, I turned the key right, correctly,
yet however, incorrectly, the lock stopped, shut as before.
"Surely this key is turned leftwards," I thought, thus trying once more.

And what lay within the casket? Surely, I can hear you ask it,
someday I'll unmask it, dearest friends and readers I adore;
on that wintry land enchanted, desolate and yet undaunted,
I regained such respite, after other friends had flown before...
I regained the recollections and the rêveries of yore,
which are lasting EVERMORE.


COMMENTARIES
The story is by the Grimms, but I mashed it up with Poe motifs, as a Yuletide Gothic treat with a positively heartwarming happy ending.