Disclaimer: Daria and all related characters are the property of MTV
            
 This poem has followed the format of Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven. While I tried to adapt this to
serve a Daria fic, Some Quotes were used and they have been marked with quotations.
                         
                                                            The Cynic
                                By
                         Steve Mitchell

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"
 on a homework assignment, trite and bound to bore,
 I laid there on my back, close to napping, without reason there came a tapping,
 A known nuisance gently rapping, endlessly at my bedroom door.
 Go away Quinn, I muttered, yet she's still tapping at my bedroom door.
 "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December," in the days when Quinn was not yet    
born.
 Eagerly I wished the morrow, to read another book I've yet to borrow,
 If only to drown out the cries that irritate me like never before
 Bringing silence I prayed would come, evermore.
 As the faded cloth curtains rustled in an open windows breeze
 "It filled me- thrilled me"with ideas I had not contemplated before;
 So that now the nuisance worsened, Quinn intruded through my bedroom door.
 What do you want said I, why do you intrude through my bedroom door?
 She threw one of my jackets at me, this she did and nothing more.
 "Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer",
  I stormed down the hall to the entrance of her bedroom door,
 Quinn, said I, shallow mistress, it is truly your attention I implore;
  "But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,"
  Then came barging in through my bedroom door,
  "That scarce was sure I heard you" Quinn threw violently open the bedroom door,
  "But saw darkness there, and nothing more"
 Deep into that dark hall was she peering, "long she stood there wondering, fearing"
 Doubting she heard, and so must be a dream she had never had before,
 And so "the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,"
 And the only word she spoke was the word, Daria?
 "This She whispered, and an echo murmured back the word", Daria?
It was just an odd dream, that it was and nothing more.
 Back into her bedroom turning, never seeing the shadow stirring
And soon again Quinn "heard a tapping somewhat louder than before"
Surely, said Quinn, surely that is my imagination. Can this mystery I explore-
"Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore";-
 It is my imagination and nothing more.

Then I turned from whence I closed the door, and then I stopped with a start and stutter,
For there stately stood Daria as from saintly days of yore;
Not the least of motions made she; for more than a moment she stopped and stayed;
But without apparent reason moved to just beneath the frame of my bedroom door-
She stopped and stood just below a bust of Quinn that stood just above her bedroom door
She stopped, and stood, and nothing more.
    
Then this lone figure beguiled her fancy into smiling,
    " By the grave of the countenance it wore."
 "Tell me", said Quinn, for what reason do you darken this nights plutonian shore?
Smiling, Quoth the cynic, "Nevermore"

Much disgusted Quinn marveled that this unfashionable person should speak so plainly.
Though her answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
 Quinn could not help agreeing that it was a rare sight to be seeing
Her own unfashionable sister simply standing just inside her bedroom door,
With such remarks as "nevermore"

 But the cynic, standing lonely just below the placid bust, spoke only
  " That one word, as if her soul in that one word she did outpour."
  " Nothing further then she uttered"- not an arm then she unfolded
Till Quinn scarcely more than muttered, other people have stood before-
On the moment she will leave me, as all the others have done before.
Then the cynic said, "Nevermore."

"Startled at the stillness broken by reply so briefly" spoken,
 " Doubtless" said Quinn,  this is all she'll say, behind her words must be something more,
 Spoken from one unhappy to create unmerciful disaster she spoke this word like a song of            
burden that only one person bore- Like a dirge of her hope that melancholy bore
Of `Never-nevermore`."
        
But the cynic still beguiling Quinn's fancy into smiling,
Straight she pulled a chair in front of cynic, and bust and door,
Then upon the chair sinking, She betook herself to thinking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous cynic of yore-
"What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous" cynic of yore
Meant in speaking "Nevermore."
           
This Quinn "sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing"
To the cynic "whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;"
This and more She sat divining, with her neck strained from not reclining
 For she had forgotten her pore refiner among other things that the lamplight gloated over
Things she could regret, Ah, forevermore!

 Then Quinn thought the air grew denser, perfumed by some unseen censer
Or a bottle of perfume that she had spilled upon the floor.
 Bitch, Quinn cried, God has cursed me- by this sibling he has sent me
 Despite all I've done to prevent fashion don'ts as in the days before!
Quoth the cynic, "Nevermore."

Dammit! Said Quinn, sarcastic bitch- are you bird or woman or devil!-
Whether Satan sent, or whether tempest tossed you here through my door,
Desolate yet all undaunted, this room is yet enchanted-
On this night of haunt and horror- tell me truly, Implore-
Does this- outfit make me look fat? Tell me-tell me, I implore!
Quoth the cynic, "Nevermore"

Dammit! Said Quinn, sarcastic person- Dammit still, if woman or devil!
By the heaven that floats above us, a place where fashion is needed no more-
Tell your cousin without sorrow laden if, without such typical criticism,
 " If you've ever seen such a sainted woman whom angels would name" Quinn
" A rare and radiant woman whom angels would name" Quinn
Quoth the cynic, "Nevermore."

" Be that word our sign of parting," cousin or not, Quinn shrieked upstarting-
Get out of my room into the tempest that is your rooms plutonian shore!
Leave no footprint as a token of the lie you have spoken!
 Leave your loneliness unbroken!- leave from beneath my door!
Take your words from out my ears, and remove yourself from within my door!
Quoth the Cynic, "Nevermore"
        
And the cynic, never moving, still is standing, STILL is standing
Below the pallet bust of Quinn that stood above her bedroom door;
And her eyes held all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
While turning as Quinn's screaming, overturned her compact casting ghosts of powder                  
across the floor;
Knowing well her soul lied within the mists of powder strewn across the floor
She bolted from the room and returned that night- Nevermore!
     
              (Show Daria smirking as Quinn runs from the room)

   I consider Mr. Poe an excellent and very disturbed writer. (My kind of guy) and no disrespect is
intended by the writing of this fic.