Ravens

common name of several birds

Ravens are any of several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus, but share similar characteristics and appearances that generally separate them from other crows. The largest raven species are the common raven and the thick-billed raven.

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"

Quotes

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  • That Raven on yon left-hand oak
    (Curse on his ill-betiding croak)
    Bodes me no good.
    • John Gay, Fables (1727), The Farmer's Wife and the Raven.
  • The Raven's house is built with reeds,—
    Sing woe, and alas is me!
    And the Raven's couch is spread with weeds,
    High on the hollow tree;
    And the Raven himself, telling his beads
    In penance for his past misdeeds,
    Upon the top I see.
    • Thomas D'Arcy McGee, The Penitent Raven; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 656.
  • The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
    White as the whitest dove's unsullied breast,
    Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
    Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl
    His tongue, his prating tongue had changed him quite
    To sooty blackness from the purest white.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Story of Coronis. Addison's translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 656.
  • Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore,—
    Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
    Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
  • And the Raven, never flitting,
    Still is sitting, still is sitting
    On the pallid bust of Pallas
    Just above my chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming
    Of a demon's that is dreaming,
    And the lamplight o'er him streaming
    Throws his shadow on the floor,
    And my soul from out that shadow,
    That lies floating on the floor,
    Shall be lifted—nevermore.
  • The raven himself is hoarse
    That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
    Under my battlements.
  • O, it comes o'er my memory,
    As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
    Boding to all.
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