English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Edgar Allan Poe
760. For Annie
T
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called ‘Living’
Is conquered at last.
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
I am better at length.
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The sighing and sobbing,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The pitiless pain—
Have ceased with the fever
That maddened my brain—
With the fever called ‘Living’
That burned in my brain.
That torture the worst
Has abated—the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:—
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst:—
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For a man never slept
In a different bed—
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
Here blandly reposes,
Regretting, its roses—
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie—
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead—
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead—
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead:—
Than all of the many
Stars of the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.