Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - HTML preview

For Annie

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 drunk 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.

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.

Stars in 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.