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ODD POEM.
THE following exquisite specimen of the private property in words has been sent us by a friend, and we are glad to be able to add it to the scrap-book of singularities in literature which so many of our fair readers, doubtless, have upon the table. POE certainly has that gift of nature, which an abstract man should be most proud of — a type of mind different from all others without being less truthful in its perceptions for that difference; and though (to use two long words) this kind of idiosyncracy is necessarily idiopathic, and, from want of sympathy, cannot be largely popular, it is as valuable as rarity in any thing else, and to be admired by connoisseurs proportionately. Money, (to tell a useless truth) could not be better laid out for the honor of this period of American literature — neither by the government, by a society, nor by an individual — than in giving EDGAR POE a competent annuity, on condition that he should never write except upon impulse, never dilute his thoughts for the magazines, and never publish anything till it had been written a year. And this because the threatening dropsy of our country's literature is its copying the GREGARIOUSNESS which prevails in every thing else, while Mr. POE is not only peculiar in himself, but unsusceptible of imitation. We have Bulwers by hundreds, Mrs. Hemanses by thousands, Byrons common as shirt-collars, every kind of writer “by the lot,” and less of individualesque genius than any other country in the world. This extends to other things as well. HORACE GREELEY is a national jewel (we think) from being humbly yet fearlessly individualesque in politics and conduct. What is commonly understood by eccentricity is but a trashy copy of what we mean. The reader's mind will easily pick out instances of the true individualesque, in every walk of life, and, as a mere suggestion, we here leave it — proceeding to give Mr. POE's verses: —
THANK Heaven! the crisis —
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last —
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
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.
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead —
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing [[,]]
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart: — ah that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness — the nausea —
The pitiless pain —
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain —
With the fever called “Living”
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
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: —
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground —
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed —
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting, its roses —
Its old agitations
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies —
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies —
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies, happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie —
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast —
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
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.
And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead —
And I rest so contentedly
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: —
But my heart it is brighter
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.
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Notes:
The introductory comment is by N. P. Willis.
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[S:1 - HJ, 1849] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - For Annie (Text-04a)