[san rensho]

THE RABY
(with apologies to both Jake Raby and Edgar Allen Poe)


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten 986 lore.
As I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a rapping, as of something gently tapping, rapping, from behind my driver's door.
Tis just valve noise, I muttered, just a sticky, tiicky valve lifter, tapping from behing my driver's door.
This it is and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow, vainly I had sought to borrow from my books by Bentley,
encouragement that my intermediate shaft bearing, that that rare and radiant bearing, was not about to be, no more.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before, so that now, to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating
Tis just valve noise from a sticky lifter,
Just some valve noise from a sticky lifter,
Only this and nothing more.

Back into my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
Surely, said I, surely that is something at my window lattice
Let me see that, what thereat is, and this mystery explore
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore
Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
in there stepped a stately RABY of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mein of Lord or Lady, perched above my chamber door,
Perched upon a bust of Porsche just above my chamber door, perched, and sat and nothing more.


Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Tell this soul full of fear and dread, that the tapping of the motor is not the failing IMS bearing that I dread,
that my engine is not dead, that the sound is not the IMS death rattle, but just a valve and nothing more.
Quoth the Raby, 'Nevermore.'

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked up starting
"Get thee back into the tempest and the nights Plutonian shore
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart and take that form from off my door
Quoth the Raby, Nevermore.

And the Raby, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Porsche just above my chamber door
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demons that is dreaming
And the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor
And my soul from out the shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted, Nevermore!