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Poetry.
A REMARKABLE POEM.
We give below a most singularly conceived and oddly expressed poem. It is from the pen of the celebrated EDGAR A. POE — the only many who could have written it. There is no author who has a finer perception of the power of words than POE; and in addition to this delicate critical perception, he possesses a peculiarity of style which is Originiality itself, and one which no one has yet been able successfully to imintate. — Ed. Spectator.
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
Of myrtles and roses:
——
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:
Annie was Nancy Locke Heywood Richmond. Poe and her closest friends always called her Annie, a name she adopted legally after her husband's death in 1873. This version of the poem closely follows the text as it appears in the Home Journal.
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[S:1 - OS, 1849, microfilm] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - For Annie (Text-06)