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A poem
— Top of scene. You open. —
Once upon …
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. 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 some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more.'
Don't memorize line by line — memorize stanza by stanza. Each six-line stanza is a self-contained unit, and they all share a rhyme scheme (ABCBBB) you can lean on.
The refrains ('quoth the Raven, Nevermore', 'nothing more', 'evermore') are anchors. Use them as checkpoints.
The meter is your friend. Tap your foot to the trochees. If a phrase doesn't fit the rhythm, you've misremembered.
Visualize the room: door, window, chamber door, bust of Pallas, tufted floor. The poem is staged in a fixed space.
Memorize backwards from the final stanza. The ending is the hardest because there's no familiar territory after it — front-load that climb.