Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Edgar Allan Poe. 18091849696. For Annie
THANK Heaven! the crisis— | |
The danger is past, | |
And the lingering illness | |
Is over at last— | |
And the fever called ‘Living’ | 5 |
Is conquer’d at last. | |
Sadly, I know | |
I am shorn of my strength, | |
And no muscle I move | |
As I lie at full length: | 10 |
But no matter—I feel | |
I am better at length. | |
And I rest so composedly | |
Now, in my bed, | |
That any beholder | 15 |
Might fancy me dead— | |
Might start at beholding me, | |
Thinking me dead. | |
The moaning and groaning, | |
The sighing and sobbing, | 20 |
Are quieted now, | |
With that horrible throbbing | |
At heart—ah, that horrible, | |
Horrible throbbing! | |
The sickness—the nausea— | 25 |
The pitiless pain— | |
Have ceased, with the fever | |
That madden’d my brain— | |
With the fever called ‘Living’ | |
That burn’d in my brain. | 30 |
And O! of all tortures | |
That torture the worst | |
Has abated—the terrible | |
Torture of thirst | |
For the naphthaline river | 35 |
Of Passion accurst— | |
I have drunk of a water | |
That quenches all thirst. | |
—Of a water that flows, | |
With a lullaby sound, | 40 |
From a spring but a very few | |
Feet under ground— | |
From a cavern not very far | |
Down under ground. | |
And ah! let it never | 45 |
Be foolishly said | |
That my room it is gloomy, | |
And narrow my bed; | |
For man never slept | |
In a different bed— | 50 |
And, to sleep, you must slumber | |
In just such a bed. | |
My tantalized spirit | |
Here blandly reposes, | |
Forgetting, or never | 55 |
Regretting its roses— | |
Its old agitations | |
Of myrtles and roses: | |
For now, while so quietly | |
Lying, it fancies | 60 |
A holier odour | |
About it, of pansies— | |
A rosemary odour, | |
Commingled with pansies— | |
With rue and the beautiful | 65 |
Puritan pansies. | |
And so it lies happily, | |
Bathing in many | |
A dream of the truth | |
And the beauty of Annie— | 70 |
Drown’d in a bath | |
Of the tresses of Annie. | |
She tenderly kiss’d me, | |
She fondly caress’d, | |
And then I fell gently | 75 |
To sleep on her breast— | |
Deeply to sleep | |
From the heaven of her breast. | |
When the light was extinguish’d, | |
She cover’d me warm, | 80 |
And she pray’d to the angels | |
To keep me from harm— | |
To the queen of the angels | |
To shield me from harm. | |
And I lie so composedly, | 85 |
Now, in my bed | |
(Knowing her love), | |
That you fancy me dead— | |
And I rest so contentedly, | |
Now, in my bed | 90 |
(With her love at my breast), | |
That you fancy me dead— | |
That you shudder to look at me, | |
Thinking me dead. | |
But my heart it is brighter | 95 |
Than all of the many | |
Stars in the sky, | |
For it sparkles with Annie— | |
It glows with the light | |
Of the love of my Annie— | 100 |
With the thought of the light | |
Of the eyes of my Annie. |