"The Raven" is Published
29 Jan 1845
New York's The Evening Mirror, published Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" for the very first time. The macabre poem is centered around the narrator. In the beginning, he is alone in his study, mourning a woman named Lenore. He hears what he believes to be knocking at the door, but soon discovers that it's coming from the window. When he opens it, a talking raven flies into the study (whether the raven could genuinely talk or if it was simply a delusion of the narrator's is up to interpretation). The only word it utters is, "Nevermore," which the narrator takes as a sign that he'll never be reunited with his dead love. The poem gained Poe some popularity, but he didn't attain much money from the publication.
If you read "The Raven" here, you'll notice that most of it is a trochaic octameter. In other words, there are eight beats a line with stressed syllables followed by unstressed syllables.
Sources